


The Bomb That Brought Us Together

by Thatmalu



Category: IT (1990), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Each Loser Is From a Different Decade, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Happy Ending, Heavy Angst, Homophobia, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mentioned Maturin | The Turtle, Modern Era, Multi, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Pennywise (IT) Exists, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Racism, Whump, anti-Semitism, different decades, not quite the same tho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:53:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 46,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26514748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thatmalu/pseuds/Thatmalu
Summary: Seven strangers, each from a different decade of the 20th century, find themselves thrust forward into the modern world with nothing but each other and some shitty advise from a mildly helpful Turtle.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon/Ben Hanscom/Eddie Kaspbrak/Beverly Marsh/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris
Comments: 125
Kudos: 148





	1. Prologue: Out of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to this weird idea I had where each Loser awakens in the modern world after being thrust forward in time from their decade. 
> 
> Please, please heed tags! The worst of it will be in the first chapter, which presents each Loser and how they’ve individually suffered in their various time periods. Lots of whump and suffering before they find and comfort each other. 
> 
> More tags to come as story progresses.
> 
> So now I present our character introductions, meeting each Loser just before their time jump! Please enjoy! 
> 
> Come yell at me on tumblr @fuckbitchesgetReddie

  
  


**1927**

Nearly a decade ago, Eddie for sure thought that the influenza would be the thing that took him out. Sickness terrified him, and he did all he could to follow orders and treat the pandemic seriously, but he couldn’t help but think it would be better for a person like him to check out early. Nothing made him happy anymore, and death may have been more welcoming to him than his mother had been. 

When the illness took his father, Eddie allowed himself to take over his father’s department store and agreed to marry one of the church deacon’s daughters, Myra. Things weren’t so bad at first; they were both young and naive, but after a couple of years, Myra was clearly beginning to show how much Eddie’s mother influenced her behavior. She’d keep her mouth closed in public like many good wives were told to do, but once they were in the privacy of their own home, she would relent about how worthless and pathetic Eddie was as a man and a person.

Eddie couldn’t stand up for himself, nor did he see a point to it anymore. He had been bullied his whole life for being small and meek and, in his teen years, a _deviant_. He knew he wasn’t like other boys in his classes, but it seemed to reek off of him like a powerful deterrent. His own parents could sense it and soon enough so could Myra.

“I saw the way you looked at that man,” Myra would hiss one they were out of earshot of others. “You think I don’t know what you’re thinking about?”

After years of hiding these thoughts, trying to assure his mother and his wife that he was _normal_ , only to find himself up in hysterics and panic on a regular basis, catching himself unable to breath in common uncomfortable situations, and finally having a mental breakdown. 

There didn’t seem like much else to do for Eddie at this point, from his mother or Myra’s perspectives. One day Eddie was going to lay himself down with a headache only to be awoken by doctors binding him in some sort of restraint jacket. Trying to call out for help did no good, as he was soon gagged and dragged into a horse-drawn buggy and held by terrifying looking men in uniforms Eddie could not place, being taken many states away from home.

He never even got to appreciate his last ray of sunshine before he was locked away. 

Eddie lost track of how long he had been here. The hours-long ice baths were almost welcoming compared to the electrical shocks pulsed through Eddie’s brain when he was particularly “acting out,” and he was soon starting to learn that this was a punishment he deserved. Maybe this would save him from an eternity in hell.

Surely, _this_ was going to be the place he died after all.

“Eddie, why don’t you look at this picture?”

“ _No_ ,” Eddie moaned, shaking his head and lowering his gaze down to the shackles keeping him in place. 

“You don’t _want_ to?”

“Please don’t make me look.”

“I think that shows great progress, Eddie. Your continued disgust for the male form is promising.”

As if Eddie wasn’t merely terrified of the beatings, electrocutions, or restraints he would receive once he laid eyes on the pictures they showed him.

It was a sick vicious cycle of torment, because small, little Eddie was not impervious to the torments he witnessed many of the guards putting on the women in the cells here. They claimed it was “aversion therapy,” all while laughing in his ear about how he should be _happy_ to get “exactly what he wanted” and pressing his tear-streaked face down into the filthy ground. By all means, it _should_ be doing exactly that, because all Eddie had of the male touch was rough gang rapes in his prison, tears and blood and _pain_.

Yet somehow none of it was enough _therapy_ . Images would still flash in Eddie’s mind, men he had been fond of in the days before now, but they were accompanied by silent tears and understanding that he was probably never going to get better. Getting disgusted with his own existence, constantly throwing up and hyperventilating in his cramped little bed, he realized he was merely _too sick_ to get better.

After all, what person of good health in his mid-twenties gets haunted by images of a _clown_?

Oh, the clown… it had once been a near inconsolable nightmare growing up, until Eddie seemed to “grow out of it.” Perhaps it wasn’t a nightmare or his imagination after all, but rather a predecessor for his ill health. 

“Eddiiiiiiiiiiiiie.”

“Go away,” Eddie muttered under his sheets, pulling the thin veil over his head.

“What are you lookin’ for, Eddiiiiiiie?”

_It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real._

“We all know you’re a dirty lil’ dicklicker, boy-o. Waddya say? Do it for a dime? Hell, you’ll do it for free, wouldn’t ya, you perverted little _queer_? Look at what you let those guards do.”

This would happen almost every night after the guards had their way with him and sometimes Eddie would see the damn thing across the hall with a long balloon it was pressing down its throat or making obscene gestures with. One late evening, the clown never came, and Eddie was up all night in the corner of his bed, staring out into the darkness just waiting in fear for it to appear.

Truthfully, Eddie had been tired for years, but as the night went on his body seemed to slip into a haze so deep that he wondered if he had somehow been tranquilized without realizing it. For a brief moment, the screaming and wailing of other inmates that conquered the chambers where he slept were deafened to complete silence. Eddie blinked through the darkness, unaware of his surroundings transforming around him until the very surface he sat on dropped him into oblivion.

**1937**

Maine was damn cold, too damn cold, and Mike was finding himself missing even the draught and sweat on his brow. Last he had been in his home state of Oklahoma was just after what he had read to be called “Black Sunday,” after that terrible storm had swept through the prairies. Even New England had red snow that year, like angel’s blood drifting through the cities. 

This new farm, his grandfather’s farm, was full of livestock sold to the local butchers and Mike quickly had to get used to slaughter, something that deeply unsettled him. Eating meat had been uncomfortable enough before he had to look his dinner in the eye before shooting a bullet through its head. The sheep were so gentle and stupid and endearing, Mike made too many mistakes bonding with them before their inevitable demise.

Perhaps his biggest mistake, though, was bonding with one of the farmhands from town, a young man whose family had lost their business once the Depression hit. Since Mike had been the only one in his immediate family to come out here to help his grandfather, they accepted William right away, offering him a room and shared meals in exchange for his hand, since that was all they could really give. He was a bright man that accepted the simple tasks without hesitation, without any complaint. 

Despite the way of the economy (which Mike was having a difficult time understanding, having lived his life tending to crops), William had wanted to be a professor and travel off to some prestigious university somewhere. They spent the last two years spending late nights up in the barn, hovering over some parchment with pencils or old books as William helped Mike get better with his reading and writing. 

History was probably Mike’s favorite subject to read from all the things William had introduced him to, fascinated at the different cultures of the world, the rise and fall of empires, the bloody American history that he hoped was leading some place good. Things were certainly better than the stories he read of slaves, tales he never heard as his parents and grandfather tried to stay hush about their past and only bring positive light into Mike’s life. He could only hope, with his own family’s optimism and positivity, and the freedoms his ancestors required, that things _would_ get better.

It wasn’t just his skin color that frightened him and made him weary of his path. No, it was that mistake named _William_ , because those nights they’d spend huddled together would end with them closing their proximity, sharing the heat beneath their garments and running their hands over each other's skin. 

Mike had been with women before coming up to Maine, even having a steady girl he was seeing just before his departure. Their goodbye was tearful, as she couldn’t promise to follow where he went, but what he had felt for her, for _anyone_ else, was nothing compared to the warmth that spread through his chest when he held William in his arms. 

They kept it quiet, a healthy fear in their hearts over what would happen to two men, let alone Mike being caught with a _white_ man, but they stole as many moments as they could in secret. Every time Mike went into the barn he felt a smile creeping over his face, thinking about what they had done in there the night before. The roof of the barn was old and tattered, and they were able to see the stars through the roof slats after they made love and held each other in the night. 

As another summer approached, Mike welcomed the heat against his skin, the sweat between their bodies as he pressed William into the ground and thrusted into him, hearing sweet whimpers escape the other man beneath him. He kissed trails up William’s back while their bodies writhed together, pressing his palms on William’s hips tightly. When he looked up over William’s shoulder, Mike froze at the sight in front of him.

Adam Barber, another farmer from a few acres up the land was watching them wide-eyed and horrified. The second Mike locked eyes with him, he ran off, leaving Mike and William to panic and dress themselves, wondering what on earth was going to happen to them. 

Or rather, what was going to happen to Mike. The white folks weren’t going to take too kindly to what he was doing to _one of their kind_. They’d see it as something indecent, they’d never agree that William consented to such a thing. 

“We’ll run away,” William whispered, trying to take Mike’s face in his hands to look steadily into his eyes. “We’ll run off to Canada, they’ll never find us.”

“That won’t do no good, you know that, Will,” Mike replied sadly. “They’ll get here before we pack our jeans.”

Come after them, they did. 

It was quiet for some time, Mike and William waiting in fear while trying to tend to their daily duties, thinking and planning an escape that would have to take place for their safety. Yet, despite Mike living in the heat his whole life, he found himself losing his steady mind to the summer rays, catching sight of bright red in the stalks surrounding his farm.

“Better run, little lamb. The wolves will rip you to shreds, get your land dirty with your negro blood.”

Whatever it was, it crept in the shadows taunting Mike until it was too late.

It didn’t take long for the whole Barber family to swarm in, galloping on their horses. The white pillow sacks on their heads did nothing to hide them, as Mike recognized the overalls he had seen Adam in when he came stumbling by. At least William wouldn’t be harmed, Mike thought, watching tears streak down his lover's face as a rope was tightened around his neck, right under an old willow where William had read him _Of Mice and Men_. It’s all he wanted to think about as the world went black around him.

  
  


**1947**

Stanley Uris was going to take his wife to the movies. It wasn’t a luxury they were often able to afford, but for Stanley’s birthday they wanted to do something special, something _grand_ . Stanley called into work sick, cheerfully stepping out of the house to pick up some flowers for Patty (because even though it was a treat for _his_ birthday, every day should be hers, he thought), hoping to surprise her with pink orchids before they left for their matinee.

They were going to enjoy themselves, but they weren’t stupid, choosing to go to a matinee and eat after to save the change for another day. The theater near where they lived normally didn’t do early showings for the films, but the movie was a box-office hit. Starring Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald, _Welcome Stranger_ was supposed to be a delight. 

It had been strange for them to get used to such a small town after living in New York all their lives, but life had been incredibly peaceful since they came to Maine. There wasn’t any place for them to worship, but they practiced the Sabbath in the privacy of their home and had had a peaceful little Hannukah on their own. It was their first time celebrating it without their family, but the quiet was welcoming. 

Especially knowing what they had left behind.

Years ago, as the war raged on over in Europe, a right-wing broadcaster by the name of Charles Coughlin had inspired an antisemitic mob called the Christian Front to attack innocent Jews in Washington Heights, the little uptown neighborhood the Uris family lived. With everything going on in the world, violence everywhere they looked, Patty and Stanley decided to pack their things and leave the big city. 

There were many family members neither of them had heard from in quite some time and it wasn’t illogical to presume the worst. They both had an Ashkenazic background, both of their families from various parts of Germany, and it would have surprised neither of them if the bodies of their lost family members were found amongst the heaps of dead found in the camps. 

Since the attacks in Washington Heights happened, the young couple thought it was best to keep that part of them secret and begin a new life elsewhere. No place seemed to be safe or welcoming, but at least now they could keep that part of themselves just between the two of them. 

Stanley wasn't entirely sure he believed in a god anyway. Not anymore. 

Life was simple in their new town. They picked up new hobbies, and Stanley had become quite fond of bird watching. They always fascinated him growing up, but Central Park wasn’t the most accommodating places for such an activity. This new area was bursting with so many species, beautiful bright colors being caught in the trees through Stanley’s binoculars. 

Patty was able to get a job as a teacher at one of the small primary schools while Stanley took a job at a bank. It wasn’t accounting, but it paid decently for the area they lived and was probably the best job he was going to get. Besides, once the doors closed at 5:00 PM, he found that he didn’t ruminate over the business of the day. There weren’t any client accounts he needed to stress over, and poor decisions made on their part didn’t end up falling on Stan’s lap. No, instead the problems came and went swiftly and did nothing to bother him at the end of the day. Now he was able to eat dinner with his wife just enjoying the stories of the children she taught and the silly antics they’d get into in hre classroom. 

This even seemed like a good place to raise children, Stanley had thought. The neighborhood was very friendly and everyone seemed to know each other. Many had questioned why they hadn’t been to the church services, but Stanley simply said that they weren’t Catholic, as simple as that. Strange to the town at first, they soon recognized that the Uris family wanted to practice their own _Christian_ faith on their own.

Unfortunately, as luck would have it, all good things must come to an end.

One Thursday afternoon, as they were gearing up to close for the evening, Stanley had caught himself telling an old childhood story that involved his father being a stern _Rabbi_ , and was met with wide eyes from his coworkers. The rest of the shift remained quiet, and Stanley soon found himself being met with hostility, being the buttend of cruel jokes.

No one would address them directly, but they would hear rumors through the grapevine. They didn’t want a _Jew_ teaching their children. They didn’t want a _Jew_ handling their money. They didn’t want _Jews_ tainting their neighborhood, not after they killed their Christ, so the Uris household would hear. 

Despite telling each other that they could handle this, that they would be perfectly safe, that the town wouldn’t grow into an angry mob, Stanley would hear a little voice in his ear telling him otherwise. Sometimes, even, that little voice manifested and spoke from something he’d see walking through the streets downtown. 

_A clown_.

“There’s big enough ovens in the bakery, Stanny boy,” the thing would say, following close behind him. “They’ll shove you right in, you and your little dyke kike of a wife, and the whole town will know what a Jew smells like _fresh baked_.”

The weirdest part was that no one else seemed to acknowledge that the clown existed, no one at the flower shop paid any mind to it _standing right there_ harassing Stan, talking over it like it wasn’t even there. So he paid for the orchids in a hurry, slamming his car door shut to rush home and pick up his wife to go see their film. In his crazy and delirium, Stan barely noticed as his vision started blacking out making the turn onto his street. 

**1957**

Someone once told Ben Hanscom, “An artist should create beautiful things, and should put nothing of his own life into them.” Supposedly it was from a book that Ben had never bothered to read, but he didn’t have to so much as look in the direction of it to know that this statement was a blatant mistruth.

As far as Ben Hanscom was concerned, absolutely everything was a way of art, all things in existence in their modern world being a product of the human imagination, whether it be of beauty or suffering, or the delicate balance between the two. Painting was art. Relationships were art. War was art.

Art is subjective, after all.

Nothing really brought Ben as much compassion as the art of human communication. It came in the looks he’d share with strangers on the bus, in the poetry he’d hear in the cafe, in the constant propaganda plastered all over the city. All of it fueled him, angered him, soothed him, pestered the beast of passion in his heart to awaken and start speaking out for himself for once in his sorry life. 

Over the years he slowly slipped into it, transforming his physical being and appearance, trying to shed everything of the loser he once was. Now people would only see the cool cat in the cafe, boots up on the table where he read his poetry and drank his pretentious espresso, his mind occasionally wandering around him and straining to hear the political climate around him.

Truthfully, he was still terrified of voicing his thoughts aloud, worried he’d be seen as some square, a fraud who didn’t care about the epitome of Beat culture. They’d find out he was an _architect_ , that he made too much money to be considered anything other than materialistic, despite his small and cozy pad on the 12th floor of his apartment building. People around him were Buddhists, and Ben still held the Catholic Crucifix hidden under his turtleneck that he’d cling to in silent prayer while trying to find a place where he fit in. He cursed himself for wasting his college years and early 20s working to find a _career_ instead of trying to find _himself_. 

He hid his personal life from his work and his work from his personal life, careful to never mix the two and always spend his free time out of town, far from where any of his coworkers could ever reach him. He’d break things off with girlfriends rather quickly, before things would heat up and get serious and she’d want to indulge more into his life and expose him. That was the nice thing about these Beat girls, though. Most of them never took things too seriously, not sex anyway. They’d hang out and fuck and a week later Ben was left with nothing but sketches of them in his notebook.

Part of him (and really a very big part of him, but one that he tried to suppress too deeply to care about) longed for _longing_ . Ben wanted to want. Ben wanted to _be_ wanted. Ben still clung to this childhood fantasy of love and happily ever after, even after the shambling destruction of his own parents' marriage growing up. He wasn’t sure if he wanted more to prove them wrong or prove himself right. 

Then _she_ happened.

Betty only had to _look_ at Ben and he was smitten. Her eyes were full of soul, the shy smile she flashed at him radiating such exquisite beauty. He lit her cigarette in the dim light of the streetlamps outside of the club and she whispered what a shame it would be to not see him again. So he brought her back to his apartment.

They listened to Buddy Holly, who wasn’t really big in their scene, but Ben told Betty that he liked the music so she said she could dig it, and they gushed about how things were changing for the better in the world, all in slow, steady movements. Her sister was still in high school and started going to what was previously an all-white school, but had started opening up to people of color shortly after segregation had ended not too long ago. The first nail in the Jim Crow era coffin, as some people put it.

Betty was terrified, but she still had hope that it would all work out for the best and her sister would get a better education than she had gotten at the underfunded institution she was at before.

“You know folks in Mississippi wouldn’t very much care to see us together,” Betty whispered, a bit of her southern twang sneaking out through her lips after her third glass of wine.

“Well, I very much don’t care what they would think,” Ben assured her. 

Little did Ben know that Betty would be the final nail in his own coffin. 

She’d been caught kissing him goodnight before heading on the bus home, followed by a string of events that got Ben _fired_ . A paranoid neighbor had spotted it through the window where he always sat with his telescope, spying on the street for suspicious looking _communists_ . After stalking Ben for some time, seeing him with these overt, politically charged _beatniks_ , people at Ben’s neighborhood, at his work, all soon were overcome by those same paranoid delusions, pushed and prodded by this idea of soviet enemies hidden beneath their very noses. 

The paranoia turned on Ben, and he found himself huddled up in his room, constantly peaking out the window waiting for someone to come and interrogate him. He tried to drink his days away and would often spot a conspicuous circus clown just standing out there with a handful of balloons, staring right back up at Ben with a sinister, wide grin. Ben’s food supply was running low and he swallowed down some pills with his alcohol to sleep away his hunger, sleep away the taunting clown, sleep away the fear that someone was still watching and waiting for him.

  
  


**1967**

“I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

“That’s not going to matter when they send your ass over there,” Patrick huffed, taking a hit of their reefer in the back of the van.

“What makes you think _you_ won’t get sent to ‘Nam, huh?” Richie argued, kicking his long legs up until his feet were pressing against the windows opposite of where he sat.

“No siblings,” Patrick shrugged, passing the joint to Sadie, where she was resting her head on Richie’s chest. “My brother died years ago. They won’t send an only child, man.”

“Fuckin’ Penelope, man,” Richie groaned, hitting his head back against the window behind him. “Stupid sister has to help the government screw me over.”

“Don’t bug,” Sadie sighed, an exhale of smoke escaping her lips. “They ain’t gonna pass the lottery. It’s all some government bullshit to scare us into sending more baby killers over there.”

“What if we bail town?” Richie mused, running his hand through Sadie’s curls as he took a hit for himself. “What if we just take the Kombi and drive up north to Canada, man? Come on, let’s just keep driving ‘til we’re over the border, the pigs won’t care once we’re out.”

“This groady old hunk of shit won’t last driving to Canada, Rich,” Patrick shook his head, brushing his hair out of his eyes and behind his ear. “Uncle Sam will figure out where we are before we make it there.”

“There’s no draft yet,” Sadie said reasonably. “I say let’s beat feet before they get a chance.”

Patrick narrowed his eyes for a moment, all bloodshot and heavy lidded, thinking hard for a moment. “Think Jerry Garcia will come to Canada?”

“Fuck yes,” Richie nodded enthusiastically, flicking the roach out the open back hatch. “Let’s do this. We’ll make it to Maine by the night and haul ass tomorrow morning for Quebec or something.”

“Right on,” Sadie agreed, lifting herself to shotgun a puff of smoke into Richie’s mouth before he pulled her down to kiss her, his tongue snaking into her mouth immediately. 

All three were already naked, so what was the harm in having some fun before they took off? 

Sadie. Richie and Patrick’s _Sexy Sadie_ , looked like a goddess as she grinded her hips into Richie’s lap. He bit into her neck as Patrick slid himself into Richie from behind, their bodies all moving in sync like they were just made for eachother, like they were a single entity. People didn’t understand how to love each other deeply enough to get their relationship, to appreciate that their love and affection was too big and plentiful to be shared with just one other person.

The three of them had been like this for months now, clicking from the moment they met with a group of other Deadheads. Even though there had to have been at least eight of them pounding away at each other in the tent, there was just something about each other that stuck, and they hadn’t separated since, agreeing to make Richie’s VW Kombi their new traveling pad.

Something was manifesting in the back of Richie’s mind, a paranoia that had made itself known far before they pulled over to roll a blunt. He shook his head as if it would physically shake the thoughts out of his head, burying himself in Sadie’s hair and focusing on how it felt to be inside her, how it felt to have Patrick inside _him_ , and just get lost in his lovers’ arms around him. Once it was over, he knew they’d lay sprawled all over each other in sweat and affection and his mind would be back in that pit again. 

Fear.

Richie prided himself on his resistance to the war, just as his parents had done with war before him and even now. Growing up a happy child was only possible because of Maggie and Wentworth, everything else around him having gone terribly to shit. As a family, they all agreed to violence was never an answer, and to harm another person was only absolutely necessary if it were to save the life of another. Hell, the only reason they supported Uncle Barry joining a fleet to fight against the Nazis was because, well, they were Nazis. Innocent people were suffering and things had to be done to stop it.

Deep down, Richie knew it was more than that. He wasn’t just a supporter of peace, and he knew it from the moment he left home, leaving his mother to care for his dying father alone. Death wasn’t something Richie could handle, even if it meant being there for his father in his final moments. Because Richie was a downright _coward_ and he probably didn’t even have the strength to protect the people he loved if given the chance.

So when they made it a ways into Maine and settled for the night, Richie waited until Patrick and Sadie were both fast asleep before grabbing a fifth of some shit they had stashed for special occasions and got himself lost in the woods. It was impossible to get lost at home, so coming out to a new land was a splendid way to lose himself into the night, especially as he drank his well-reasoning mind to a stupor. They’d never find him wherever he ended up stumbling and he could probably start a new life out here picking mushrooms and hanging out with the moose or whatever the fuck kinda of creatures were here.

Certainly they’d be better company than the clown he’d catch the reflection of in his rearview mirror or somehow see passing along the long roads with his white-gloved thumb out. While driving he’d often hear it whispering into his ear, only to turn and find that it had disappeared. Sometimes it would speak in his father’s voice, crying about Richie leaving him to die alone, running off like a spoiled, fear-stricken little cunt.

Richie could’ve sworn he heard the thing whisper at him through the trees before he tripped, never seeing the cliff until he had fallen into its darkness.

**1977**

Two years after the death of Georgie Denbrough, Bill Denbrough packed a small suitcase of his things and left his hometown for good. 

Bill was nineteen when they drafted the first lottery, and by some miracle had avoided every single damn one of them. Part of him wanted to go, only if it meant that Georgie would never get swept up in this seemingly everlasting war. He wasn’t sure of the specifics, but he knew only children couldn’t get sent away. Maybe they’d spare Georgie if Bill was sent instead?

Luck was never Bill’s strong suit, but it usually plagued him enough to leave his loved ones alone, until Georgie was called to fight in Vietnam. Little did they know, it would be the very last calling of soldiers before the war finally ended. Yet, Georgie never got to see the end of it, soldiers coming to the Denbrough house to share their condolences before Georgie even saw past the tender age of 18. 

When he had been sent, he had told Bill he was sorry he never went off to college like Bill did, that he wished he was as smart as Bill and could’ve done something with himself besides cleaning boats and maintaining the shipyard in the harbor. Bill should have told Georgie that he was proud of him anyway; for working so hard, for making a living without their parents' help, for being around something he loved, hopefully saving up enough one day to get a boat for himself. Instead, he told Georgie he’d make something of himself when he got home from war. That maybe he could spend his time reflecting and figuring himself out. 

Besides that, Bill kicked himself for not joining the armed forces on his own. If he went anyway, that would be one less spot to send Georgie to. Maybe they never would’ve sent the Denbrough’s younger son when they already had one fighting Charlie overseas. Audra tried to tell Bill it wasn’t his fault. There was nothing he could’ve done. Nothing was comforting. 

Eventually, he lost himself to his mind, drowning in the pages of his books he read and wrote, isolating himself to his corner office of the house until the stench of it drove him crazy, because all he could smell was his house that wasn’t a home anymore because Georgie could never see it, would never be a part of his life again. Pictures haunted him and his wife stopped being a solace before Georgie was even gone. She couldn’t find Bill where he had hidden himself in his own head.

Maine was quiet and vast. Bill was able to contact someone about a cabin deep in the wilderness, far enough from society that he could be left alone, but not too far that he couldn’t drive up to the liquor store and stock up on rum on crackers. All he needed was his typewriter and his tabby cat, Chester, and hopefully Audra would never come looking for him, letting him lose himself to fantasy worlds he let bleed black on paper. 

The stories got more bizarre and wicked as Bill slammed his fingers away at the keys, days going by before he remembered to shower, sometimes even eat. Happy endings were a myth, so Bill never paid mind to write them, terrorizing the characters in his head until the very end. He knew he was losing his mind, and it had been made apparent by a psychiatrist, his parents, his now-separated wife and of course, the fact that he had been seeing an imaginary clown for the last two years. 

“He’d be alive if it weren’t for you, stuh-stuh-stuh-stuttering buh-buh-Bill. You could’ve saved him if you went instead, but now he’s deeeeeeead. All because you were a pussy.”

Bill couldn’t even argue with it, simply letting the things taunts manifest into angst poured into his work that would eventually be seen by _no one_ , since all of his writing would end up on the floor, scattered about his cabin for him to step over and ignore again. They weren’t good, anyway, but he wrote to spill the thoughts out of his head, emptying out the pain before it built up too much.

For the first time in months, Bill wandered outside into the cold night, barely registering the chill that bit into his skin as it tore through the fabric of his too-thin clothes. The sky was clear, but the air smelt of snow, that familiar freshness floating through Bill’s nostrils as he hiked down to the lake. There was an old boat there, a little canoe that he had seen many times when he first came here, but had never seen occupied by anyone. 

Georgie would’ve gotten a canoe for them, would’ve dragged Bill out and rippled through the surface of the lake just to feel himself float. That was his favorite part, he always said. 

“It’s nice to float,” he’d tell Bill. “Like the weight of you is finally being carried by something else and not pulling you down.”

So Bill decided he was going to float.

No one was around when he stepped into the little boat, wobbling under his weight before he slid off the rope tethering it to the wood. He kicked off with his boot before clumsily falling down onto his ass and watching the shore drift away from him as he slid across the surface of the water.

It was relaxing, he supposed, leaning back against the tail end of the canoe, watching his breath burst out of his mouth in a cloud as he stared up at the starry sky. Trying his best to ignore the clown waving at him from the shore, Bill tilted his head back and tried to get lost in the stories of the stars before he shut his eyes.

**1987**

Beverly gingerly blended her foundation against the swollen, bruising skin around her eye. Years after vowing she would never see her father again, it was finally sinking in that she ended up married to the bastard. Tom had already proved himself to be just as terrible years ago, but it never caught on, blinded by her love and lust and desperation not to be alone.

“Need help with your makeup, Bev dear? You can paint yourself just like me! You’re a clown too for fooling yourself thinkin’ you were more than a worthless whore!”

“Fuck off, Bozo,” Bev grunted, not looking at the damn thing standing behind her at the sink. At this point, she already knew she was fucking crazy, but that didn’t mean she had to give in to her delusions.

Ignore it, like she always did. Ignore it like she ignored all of Tom’s violent streaks, his hands on her face, his fucking her when she didn’t want it, his telling her how to live her life, controlling everything.

Not anymore.

Her whole life, Bev had lived in fear, mostly of herself. One of the reasons she hated to be alone was because she was afraid of what kind of person she had become, and always found herself in the company of others, usually men, using it to empower herself. It was something she thought she could take back and make her own after it was stolen from her. At the tender age of 10, her father had taken her virginity after stumbling home drunk, not long after the suicide of Bev’s mother. 

“You look just like her, you know that, Bev,” he growled in disgust, spraying her with her mother’s perfume as she cried in her bed sheets before he tore into her. He called her by her mother’s name, Elfrida, the entire time, pushing her face to the side so he couldn’t see her cry. 

Part of her was afraid that a piece of her father still lived inside of her, a monster waiting to awaken and rage in bitter disgust at how the world had treated them. He lost his mind after he lost his wife, and Beverly wondered if she still had her own or if she just occupied this body as an empty shell with sight and senses, doing nothing more than perceiving the world around her. 

Somehow, after all the years of bruises and fights, _this_ was her last straw. Gone were the years of hiding behind the lies love told her. She was going to pack up and go, leave Tom and hopefully this damn clown behind.

Beverly prayed, god did she pray, that she was not as monstrous as him, hiding behind a blanket of victimhood, waiting to lash out at others to inflict the pain she had felt onto them. Delicate it would be to find a balance of protecting her own well-being and trusting others. 

There wasn’t even anywhere for her to go, and she knew this all too well as she crammed necessities into a duffle bag, too frenzied to even fold anything neatly in the pack. Spoiled her, Tom did, with all of their things, their large house, his expensive taste, as if it made up for the terror he reigned over her during the last few years. He probably would scoff at the idea of her going off on her own, knowing she’d be starting right at the bottom.

But Beverly would rather live in the sewers than spend another night in his bed. 

No, she _did_ know where to go. Because she often spent Saturday mornings making talk with a cashier at the record shop, Kay. Kay never minded Bev spending hours there, blasting New Order and Depeche Mode through the speakers while dancing between the aisles, scoping out the guys that were coming out of the gym across the street with their sweaty, hot bods. Kay might’ve even been her friend if Beverly considered anyone her friend, which was difficult to do when she felt like she had skated by all her conversations with people by avoiding talking about anything personal. 

“Where the hell do you think you’re going, Bev?”

Beverly’s head snapped up at the walk-in closet door, Tom standing there large and menacingly with that look in his eye. He couldn’t give her a goddamn break, could he?

“Kay’s,” Bev said automatically, straightening her back when she stared back at him. 

“You think that minimum wage slut is going to be able to afford to take care of you?” Tom laughed, cold and callous. “Where the fuck are you going to sleep, in the record store?”

“She won’t have to,” Bev said defiantly, swinging the bag over her shoulder. She had all she needed.. “I don’t _need_ to be taken care of, Tom. Get out of my way. I’m leaving.”

Making to push past him, Beverly tried to move as swiftly as she could, attempting to duck at his movements, but his hand snatched her throat before she was able to make it past the threshold. She clawed his face as he squeezed her neck, drawing blood under his eye, and he threw her down onto the floor outside the closet into their bedroom. Before she could even react, Tom was fisting her hair and she cursed herself for not taking her jewelry out, his fingers caught in her earring as she felt it tear through the bottom of her earlobe when he attempted to lift her up. She fell back onto the carpet cursing under her breath as some blood dripped into her face, but she reached forward and pulled herself up by the corner of the nightstand, prepping to take a run for it and leave everything behind.

She had barely gotten two feet when he caught her around the waist, struggling against each other while Bev screamed out, kicking and punching every inch of him she could reach until he had grabbed into her hair again, fisting the back of her head with a tight grip while he pulled her head back to whisper harshly in her eat.

“You are _mine_ ,” he growled. “You are _nothing_ without me, Bev. And you’re not going _anywhere_.”

Before Beverly had a chance to fight back, Tom thrust his arm forward, Beverly’s face colliding into the door frame against her already existing bruise before blacking out.


	2. Waking Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our Loser's wake up and try to figure things out.
> 
> Thank you for your kudos and comments, they're always appreciated!
> 
> Also, as someone has asked, and I want to bring it up: while this can be viewed as Poly!Losers going forward, it's not gonna be a 7-person orgy or anything (though I thoroughly support anyone's efforts to write this), they're gonna have all sorts of dynamics in the group moving forward (no spoilers). Anyway, enjoy!

Probably the most unhelpful thing that had occurred since they woke, perhaps even  _ more _ unhelpful than the man who was still unconscious on the floor, was one of these buffoons offering the statement, “I don’t think the turtle will help us.”

Frustrated by the six confused (or still sleeping) men that had appeared in the house with her, Beverly ran out to check her surroundings, her gut telling her that she wasn’t in Portland anymore. As it turned out, whatever this house was, it was not visible from the sidewalk. Beverly stood there incredulously with her mouth hung open as she turned around to take a look at the house she had just exited, only to see nothing, only a patch of forest marked as condemned and dangerous. She took a hesitant few steps forward until the place appeared for her again, and she ran back in as if something was just on her heel, slamming the door shut behind her with a screech.

After accepting that this was probably just a long, bizarre dream, it was easier to accept the weirdos that had landed here with her. There was a lot of panic and shouting until one of them had managed to pull himself into a stable enough mind to help her find a notebook and paper in the house, forcing the others (except the sleeping one) to sit down and go over  _ what the actual fuck just happened _ .

When Bev had scrunched her nose at the hippie and said, “What is it, 1965?” she had said it as a  _ joke _ . So when he looked back confused and said sincerely, “Uh, ‘67. You high, man?” Bev finally started to understand, or at least guess as to why they were all so vastly different.

“All right, all of you, one at a time, tell me what today’s date is.”

Ten years appeared to be apart from each one of them, give or take a few months. The one that had settled down just after Bev, who had just been in 1957, told her he had left in the autumn, but he couldn’t exactly remember the date.

“It was close to my birthday,” he mused, nodding slowly. “October 2nd.”

“It’s my birthday,” Bev told him rather astonishingly, looking around to see another strange bout of understanding between them.

Another round of quick conversation, and they all realized they had left, not just  _ on _ their birthday, but their 27th birthday, specifically.

“Wild, man,” the hippie said. “It’d be a lot cooler if we all had the same birthday.”

“What about this is  _ cool _ to you, you dirty hobo?” 1957 said.

“Funny coming from a fucking beatnik,” the hippie grinned, flashing him his middle finger.

“I don’t - I don’t know what half of what you're saying means,” stammered one of the others, his hands shaking in his lap where he sat on the armchair. He had a bouquet of pink orchids with him that he had set down beside him. “I don’t understand anything. I just want to see my wife.”

“Hey, it’s ok,” Beverly said gently. “We can figure this out, we just need to stay calm,  _ stop _ being dicks to each other,” she added, flashing a glare between Hippie and Beatnik. 

They finally did a round of proper introductions. Now that they had each other's names, and knew a little bit about where (or when) they were from, Beverly was able to kind of get a grip on how to handle them all. She looked down at all the information she had on them all in the little notebook:

> _Ben - ~~Sept?~~ 57 (oct 2) - was in his apartment in Portland  
>  keeps looking out the windows  
>  Richie - March 7 67 - thinks he fell off a cliff ( ~~probably Stoned~~ ) "wasn't stoned"  
>  _ _fell off cliff? (probably stoned)_  
>  _Stanley - June 5 47 - was driving home to see his wife  
>  had flowers. says he was going to a movie  
>  Bill - January 4 77 - fell asleep on a canoe by his cabin  
>  cut off his ponytail!!  
>  Mike - July 1 37 - ??  
>  _ _wont say much. looks out of it_  
>  _Me - Feb 6 87 - (Bev)_  
>  _Man on floor?_

Beverly left hers blank, feeling as uncomfortable as Mike probably did sharing what she had been doing before they woke up here. Beverly seemed to be the  _ youngest _ , so to speak, so she was really the only one who had a sense of where all of them had been. 

One of them was still unconscious though.

“So this is either ‘27 or ‘97?” Bill mused.

“He’s kind of breathing?” the hippie, Richie, said, approaching the lump cautiously where they had draped a blanket over him. “Someone poke him with a stick.”

“We’re not doing that,” Stanley groaned. “But he needs a bath.”

“He looks like he needs a hot meal,” Ben said softly, gently reaching down to touch the shoulder of the young man on the floor. The second he did, the man let out a small whine and started shivering.

“A lot of you need clothes,” Bev said, looking around to think of  _ how _ they could find clothing. 

“There’s some in the drawers upstairs,” Bill said. 

“Perfect. Ok, you,” Bev said, pointing to Richie. “How about you take him upstairs and try to get him clean?”

“Why me?”

“Because we’d all appreciate it if you took a shower, too.”

Richie scoffed, but stepped over the small man on the floor, helping Ben roll him over to sit him up. Now that they could see his face, they saw that he wasn’t so much as sleeping as he was just completely out of it. He was  _ tiny _ , definitely underfed and frail, definitely no taller than Bev was. If they were to assume he was their age, he was definitely prematurely gray, streaks of silver through the dark brown. 

“Be careful,” Bill said. “He looks like a criminal. Look at his clothes.”

“He’s the size of a peanut, dude,” Richie huffed, lifting the smaller man with ease. 

“Those don’t look like prison garments,” Stanley said softly. “Wherever he was, he probably didn’t deserve to be there. Look at his tag.”

They looked to where Stan was pointing, the small man’s wrist that dangled limply at his side. Ben gently lifted it to read the scribbled writing there.

“‘C Wing. Manic-depressive. Homosexual. Keep sedated.’ Yikes,” Ben grumbled, his cheeks flushing red.

“Right on, little dude,” Richie said, patting the man’s shoulder where he was holding him. 

“‘110300EFK,’” Ben continued before dropping the man’s wrist. “He must be 1927. Rough.”

“History is a bitch,” Bev said, half of the men snapping their heads up at her incredulously at her language. She rolled her eyes. “Just please clean up Mr. 1103 while I go figure out what’s upstairs.”

“Don’t call him by the number,” Stanley snapped. “He’s a person.”

Beverly blushed, realizing the weight of what she had said to a person from Stanley’s time period, but Ben came to her rescue. “We can give him a name for now until he can tell us. Otherwise, we don’t really know.”

Beverly looked at the tag again before scribbling down at the bottom of the paper.

> _~~Man on floor?~~  
>  E - 11-03-27 maybe - sick. take care of him. needs food _

“Anyone want to help?” Richie asked, raising his eyebrows.

Stanley hesitated for a moment before raising his hand, following Richie where he was carrying E to the downstairs bathroom.

Beverly was just about to go upstairs to follow Ben and Bill, but looked over at Mike, who was still sitting silently on the couch. 

“You’ve been quiet,” she said. 

“It’s a lot,” Mike said softly, still staring at the floor. “This is all like a Jules Verne book or something. The future...”

“What were you doing before you left your time?”

Mike swallowed audibly, something dark flickering over his face. “Being murdered.”

Bev reeled back, taken off guard by that response. She supposed it made sense. Maybe Tom was finally going to kill her just before she woke up here. Hell, maybe he  _ did _ kill her and this was some kind of strange purgatory. Maybe they were all dead. She had heard of the 27 Club, but that was usually for famous rock stars. This old house was probably where the normal people went.

She took off her wedding ring, shoving it in her pocket, Mike eyeing her as she did so.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” Bev told him with a smile. “I think maybe we all narrowly avoided something pretty terrible.”

Mike’s brow furrowed, taking in what she said. After a moment, he looked down and offered the first smile Bev had seen from him.

“I like your clothes. The future seems very colorful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many in my life.”

Bev couldn’t help but laugh, looking down at her turquoise patterned dress and bright, rainbow leggings. “Yeah, I suppose 1937 wasn’t one of the more brighter times. Did the Wizard of Oz come out yet?”

Mike blinked confusedly, tilting his head, which she took for a no. “I worked on a farm. No wizards.”

“Well, considering where we’re all at now, I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”  


***

“Why are you running a  _ bath _ ?” Richie scoffed, still cradling the smaller man in his arms.

“What - what else am I supposed to do?” Stanley asked, genuinely confused.

“Turn the shower on, man.”

“Sh-shower?”

Richie groaned, throwing his head back. “Take him, man, I’ll do it.”

Stanley took hold of E, who was slowly starting to stir. He was extremely tense, but very light and felt thin in Stanley’s grip as he watched Richie fiddle with the knobs in the tub. 

“Are these… common? In your houses?” Stanley asked. “I never saw a lot of houses with them.”

“I suppose, man.”

“Why do you keep calling me ‘man,’ sir?”

“Definitely don’t call me sir,” Richie grinned, holding his hand out under a stream of water that burst out from the wall above him. “Shit, that’s cold.”

“Language.”

“I don’t need you to drag me, old man,” Richie chuckled.

“I am the same age as you.”

“Actually, depending on how you want to look at it, I’m 7 or you’re almost 50.”

“Well, neither of those is true right now,” Stanley sighed, shifting his arms as the man in his arms tried to turn over, peeking at what was going on.

“Your pants are hiked up to your chest, man,” Richie smirked. “Those are old man threads. Very groovy, though. I can dig it.”

Stanley looked down, very confused by everything Richie just said. “Grooves? I ironed them this morning.”

Richie elected to ignore that, slowly approaching after the water started to get steamy and hot.

“Hey, man,” he said softly to E. “Can we, uh - can we - ?”

“Can we take your clothes off?” Stanley said firmly.

E, surprisingly, nodded, his eyes still half-lidded, blinking heavily. They set him down, a little wobbly on his feet, both trying to respectfully keep their eyes up. Even if they could stand him up straight, he’d barely make it to Richie’s shoulder.

“He really needs to eat,” Stanley groaned with a pained expression. “He’s all skin and bone. This is terrible, what people do to each other.”

Richie frowned but nodded, trying to help E into the shower, but realized it was going to be too difficult for him to do on his own. “I’m going to go in with him.”

“Good,” Stanley nodded. “You smell.”

“Don’t touch my weed,” Richie said as he started to undress (because the first thing he did when he realized he was in the freakin’ future was make sure his pot was in his pocket still). Stanley kept E up, unsteady as he leaned against Stanley, his face in the crook of Stanley’s neck.

At this point, despite being complete strangers, Stanley didn’t blink at the idea of two naked men just in this bathroom with him, helping Richie take E into the tub under the hot stream of water. He sat back on the lid of the toilet once they pulled the curtain back.

Richie was careful with the little guy, pulling him into his chest so he had something to lean on while Richie leaned up to grab the shampoo that was on the shelf. E let out a soft moan and slung his arms around Richie tightly, the first real effort they had seen from him since they woke up. Just after this, though, his body finally relaxed, his muscles releasing their tension under the steam, his poor skin covered in various bruises.

“Has there been a third world war yet?” Stanley asked rather casually from behind the curtain.

“Uh, almost,” Richie replied, doing his best to scrub E’s skin as gently as he could. “We’re - we’re in a really bad war right now, but… it’s not like how it was. The U.S. of A is definitely not the good guy.”

He heard Stanley let out a long, frustrated sigh. “I can’t stand humans. Why are we so awful to each other?”

“Did you fight?” 

“No. There’s no way I was going to risk a Nazi capturing me. I’m Jewish,” Stanley clarified. “I’m pretty sure my Omi was killed. I haven’t heard from her.”

“I’m sorry,” Richie said genuinely. “War fucking sucks, man. You’re right. Humans are a garbage species.”

Stanley chuckled at that, echoing against the tile, and it made Richie smile, despite the dark topic. 

“They probably had him drugged up and shocked,” Stanley mused. “They do that, electrocute the patients in those places. All for being… what was it?”

“People still do not take kindly to men like that,” Richie said quietly, letting E hang onto him while he washed his own hair (which was probably long overdue; the water  _ did _ feel pretty fantastic). 

“I never understood it. The original translation - the one we use in the Torah and the Old Testament - doesn’t say anything about it. We shouldn’t hate people for loving differently.”

Richie couldn’t help but smile broadly under the steam, his spirits lifting up at the notion of some 1940’s geezer simply just accepting such a radical thing as gay people. “So what did the good ole’ book say?”

“Don’t have sex with children.”

“Someone should remind the Pope,” Richie muttered under his breath, turning the water off once they were all clean. 

Stanley helped them dry off, watching E carefully sit down after they wrapped him in some towels that were on the sink. He thinks E is coming to, blinking up through the harsh lighting above them. Richie secured his own towel around his waist, bending down to take E’s chin gently and look at him carefully.

He couldn’t register much of what was happening before. Someone had been holding him, soft and careful, something he hadn’t been used to in a very long time. They had carried him, bathed him, warmed him up soothingly. Now he was able to look around properly and stared up at the pale face of a handsome stranger in front of him, eyes as blue as the sky he hadn’t seen in months, or  _ years _ maybe.

Did he finally die? Was he in heaven? No, certainly not. Deviants like him don’t go to heaven. Perhaps this was the beautiful Lucifer, God’s fallen angel, the bearer of light, coaxing the strayed lamb to follow him to hell. 

“How you feelin’, gorgeous?”

He grinned sleepily up at the handsome stranger, a giddy giggle eliciting from his lips. Yeah. This was definitely hell. It was already proving to be better than where he had been.

“You can call me Eddie, Satan.”

***

“So what were you saying about the turtle, Bill?” Ben asked, taking some clothes out of a dresser drawer. 

Bill frowned, pulling out some shirts from the closet in the bedroom they stood in. “I saw - I saw a turtle in the stars. He said he’d help us, but I don’t know if he really will.”

“There are four bedrooms,” Beverly stated, coming in to lean against the door frame. “No one seems to live here. There are picture frames everywhere, but they’re all empty. I don’t get it.”

“I am beyond the point of trying to understand any of this,” Bill muttered. He heard Beverly come up to him, but didn’t notice what was in her hand before he felt a tug at the back of his head with the sound of a  _ snip _ . “Hey, what - ?”

“ _ This  _ was going to drive me crazy,” Beverly grinned, waiving his hair at him before chucking it in a bin by the bed. She handed him the scissors. “Fix it up and give them to Richie.”

Bill scowled, fluffing the back of his hair up before grabbing the scissors and walking back down the hall to find a mirror. 

Once they were able to get Richie, Eddie, and Mike into clean clothes (and Bev at  _ least  _ trimmed Richie’s hair), they huddled in the living room to try to figure out what exactly they should do. The house was old, old enough for any of them to really recognize the style of the place, but it had a hodgepodge of things off with it. Strange enough that there were clothes and beds in the rooms and empty picture frames, it also had scattered furniture and working utilities. Of course, there was also the fact that it disappeared from sight once you stepped off the property. Some of the others tried it out for themselves after what Bev had told them, and the same thing happened with each one. Afraid they’d lose the whole place entirely and get lost, no one decided to leave just yet. 

Eddie being up now, they tried to make introductions, but he seemed more keen to simply sit in Richie’s lap and bury his face in Richie’s chest, keeping up the hood of the sweater they had given him to hide his face, muttering that it was ‘too bright’ in the dim lighting and deep burgundy walls.

“He’s still really out of it,” Stanley explained. “He called Richie Satan and has this imprint on him like a baby duckling.”

“I’ve been called worse,” Richie shrugged, rubbing the back of the small man on him. “I don’t mind him clinging. Besides, exactly how much affection do you think he got in that place?”

“He’s probably crazy,” Bill muttered just loud enough for Ben to hear, who couldn’t help but nod in silent agreement due to the strange behavior of this member of their weird time travel gang.

“Does anyone else think we’re dead?” Beverly asked bluntly. “Because at least 3 of us were just about to be killed before we woke up here.”

“I was just sitting on a boat,” Bill said, shaking his head. “I don’t see how that fits.”

“You could’ve fallen asleep and froze to death,” Ben reasoned. “Maybe I drank too much.”

“We could all be crazy,” Mike said. His warm voice was soft, but it startled the rest of them since he hadn’t spoken much at all today. “No offense to y’all, but some of the stuff you said about when you left has me weary of my own sanity.”

“Purgatory for crazy people?” Bev asked, but didn’t really dispute it.

“Ok, well… there was one weird thing,” Bill said slowly, shifting uncomfortably where he sat on the floor. “For a while, I’ve been… I’ve been followed by this… this  _ Thing _ . It… I’ve seen It in the strangest places, always knowing where I am. Like It’s… taunting me. Saying things. It didn't feel human, but It always showed up looking like - like a - ”

“ _ Clown _ ,” Eddie groaned into Richie’s chest, bunching his body up to ball up into Richie’s lap.

Neither of them even realized he was able to comprehend their conversation in the least until that point, that he was even listening. In any other circumstances, or in a group of any other people, it might’ve been bizarre, but that same terrified look flashed over all of their faces and only magnified once they realized the same thing.

“Yeah,” Mike said quietly. “I saw It, too.”

“If It wasn’t human,” Ben started. “Then what  _ is It _ ? What was It doing?”

“Bringing us here,” Stanley answered. “Maybe.”

Suddenly, Bill stood up, looking a little dizzy and sick. “Maybe the turtle  _ can _ help us.”

“What is it with you and this goddamn turtle?” Richie snapped, apologetically covering Eddie’s ears when he twitched in his lap.

But Bill did not answer, running upstairs to muttering to himself, leaving the rest of them confused.

“In the meantime,” Stanley said finally, still staring at the stairs Bill had just disappeared up into. “Why don’t we try and find an information center that could help figure some stuff out about where we are?”

“And  _ when _ we are,” Mike agreed, nodding.

“I should go,” said Beverly. “Someone can come with me, but I think it’s a safe bet I’m the closest thing we have to this… time period, or whatever.”

“I’ll go with you,” Ben said right away, just as Mike had stood up.

“You should both go,” she said, ignoring the weird way they were staring at each other. “We can see if we can find a library and use a computer. I don’t know who all I have to explain that sentence to, but I don’t have time right now.”

They pulled out the notebook and wrote some things down to try and look up while the rest stayed there, until they had a short list, even getting a small contribution from Eddie.

> _ Patricia Blum Uris - for Stan _
> 
> _ Patrick Hockstetter, Sadie Roberts, The Grateful Dead (??) - Richie _
> 
> _ Myra & Sonia Kaspbrak - Eddie _

“You sure you don’t want to look up anyone, Bill?” Ben called up the stairs. “Bill?”

After no response for a few seconds, Ben shrugged, getting ready to follow Beverly and Mike outside, leaving Stanley and Richie to take care of Eddie. 

“She’s probably right,” Eddie said quietly to Richie, who was looking for a tool in the kitchen to cut off Eddie’s bracelet where he sat on the counter. Stanley had gone out to the backyard to scope around.

“Beverly? About what?”

“About us being dead,” he said casually, resting his head on one of the cabinets. “I’m probably in hell.”

Richie froze for a second before taking a pair of scissors from one of the drawers and slicing the bracelet off of Eddie’s wrist. 

“Don’t listen to this, man,” Richie said earnestly, showing Eddie the torn band. “This shit is wrong. There’s nothing the matter with you. It’s not a sickness, man, it’s just...” Richie sighed, throwing the wristband into the sink. “Look, things… they’re not _ great _ , they’re still a drag, but they’re getting better right now. I’ve… got a guy back home, you know.”

Eddie’s brow furrowed, looking at him seriously. “When?”

“1967.”

Eddie’s frown deepened, looking down to play with the pockets of his hoodie. He seemed to be very comfortable in the simple garment. 

“I bet they’d like you,” Richie continued, smiling at Eddie. “Patrick and Sadie I mean.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. If we got you back there, get you all laid back,” Richie clicked his tongue. “I bet you’d freak out.”

“F-freak?” Eddie mumbled.

“Nononono,” Richie said immediately, taking Eddie’s hand. “I just mean you’d have a gas. Like you’d be  _ happy _ ,” he further explained, which made Eddie smile the tiniest bit. He still seemed unsure and quiet, so Richie leaned closer, brushing his thumb lightly over a small bruise on Eddie’s jaw. “Man, they did a number on ya, huh?”

Eddie pursed his lips, his eyes swarming with tears, which immediately sent a sharp pang in Richie’s chest. It looked like Eddie was just about to speak, opening his mouth just before they heard a calamity behind them. They both turned to see Bill had stumbled down the stairs, looking wide-eyed and sweater, his irises bloodshot.

“Dude, have you been smoking my pot?” Richie asked, angry about  _ that _ and Bill ruining the moment.

“Yes,” Bill said firmly. “And… I know what the turtle wants.”


	3. Figuring This Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The group take some time to learn what happened to them in the past and reach out to some loved ones.
> 
> i don't have anything crazy to say except thank you for the kudos and comments<3

After an hour of uncomfortable guidance from the librarian, Beverly was finally able to figure out the “search engine” on her own. Thankfully, the librarian also seemed to have dealt with stranger people coming through here, not really paying the small group much mind, albeit just a little impatient. Beverly was grateful they appeared to have gone on a weekday, finding a shiny, slick looking computer in the back corner for them to scour the _Internet_ for old records, news articles, and information on the people they were meant to look up. Beverly was able to get some notes down at least, finding either addresses or information.

> _Patricia Uris_
> 
> _3396 Henderson Dr Bangor  
>    
>  _
> 
> _Sadie & Patrick Hockstetter _
> 
> _18 Cypress Ln  
>    
>  _
> 
> _Sonia Kaspbrak - d. 1927_
> 
> _Myra K - d. 1962  
>    
>  _
> 
> _Tom Rogan - d. 1998 County Prison_

Knowing Tom was dead was… cathartic, in a way. It was one less thing to worry about, although Beverly did feel a strange bit of guilt thinking that way. 

“I can’t believe we’re in the new millennium,” Ben sighed quietly. “And no flying cars.”

“2017,” Mike nodded, still looking around him in awe. “It sounds so weird to say.”

“What else should we look up?” Bev asked them. “While we’re here.”

“We should look up ourselves,” Mike offered. “Figure out what happened.”

“Oh good point,” Ben agreed as Beverly started typing. They figured they’d start from the beginning, and started with Eddie. 

“There’s an article from a few years ago,” Bev said, clicking on a link. “Talking about the history of a mental hospital not too far from here…”

_Juniper Hill Psychiatric Hospital (formerly Juniper Hill Insane Asylum) was first under investigation after bystanders witnessed workers carrying out unmarked body bags and dumping inmates off the cape. Detectives would later identify the bodies of Nettie Cobb (32), Raymond Joubert (late 30s), and Edward Kaspbrak (27) … cause of death indeterminable, after finding the inmates had all suffered from beatings, malnutrition, internal organ failure_

Beverly clicked out of the tab, not wanting to read anymore as her stomach churned uncomfortably. “I still can’t believe he was _married_ and his family let this happen to him…”

“Keep looking,” Ben asked, looking a bit shaken up. “Mike, you were next - ”

“I don’t need to look that up,” Mike said firmly. “I know what happened. That makes at least two of us that died.”

“We can do Stanley,” Bev said quietly before Ben could speak. 

As it turned out, Stanley had been killed, too. Apparently, a car had driven into his own on his way home, and when he got out of the car to check the damage -

“I can’t read this,” Beverly groaned, clicking out of the new tab. “Every way we went was just… awful. Eddie was killed, Stan was jumped and murdered, Mike...”

“You remember yours?” Ben asked quietly as Mike nodded. “Both of you?”

“Unfortunately,” Beverly sighed. She looked down at their pathetic little notes and decided they would continue, at least, with the others. “Well, Benny, I guess you’re next then.”

***

“Where did Eddie go?” Stanley asked, coming out of his bath and entering what they had designated to be possibly his, Richie, and Eddie’s room. When they asked Eddie where he wanted to sleep, he was adamant about them both staying with him. Bill had just wanted to be alone for the time being.

“He went downstairs,” Richie replied absently, trying to roll a thin ‘joint’ with what he had left of his ‘weed’ after Bill had smoked through the rest of it. 

“Should we… check on him?” Stanley asked carefully, but Richie waved his hand.

“Let him be, man. I’m sure he could use a break from being watched and being told what to do. Christ, there just isn’t enough herb here to roll this right.”

“Is it common to smoke that where - when you’re from?” Stan asked, sitting on the bed and watching Richie’s long fingers carefully press into the paper to tighten his roll. 

“Depends who you ask. The Man certainly wouldn’t hesitate to lock you up, but people in my scene are always down to take a hit.”

“‘The Man?’” Stanley asked. 

“Yeah, pigs. Cops.”

“Ah…” He paused for a moment, tapping his knee rhythmically while trying to find the words he wanted to say. 

“So the thing with the turtle, huh?” Richie scoffed, shaking his head as he pushed himself back to lean against the headboard. “It’s fucking crazy, man.”

Stan scowled at the language, but nodded in agreement. However… “Is it any crazier than seven people waking up in a strange, disappearing house after time traveling?”

Richie shrugged. “Multidimensional shapeshifting creatures battling it out over a field of time and space…”

“And accidentally sweeping us up and vomiting us out in the future,” Stanley said, repeating the absurd story Bill had said earlier. “Although, supposedly, he was saving us from being clown-space-monster food and fueling it to make it stronger.”

Richie made some vague gesture with his hands, not really having a proper response for that, because really, who would?

Stanley looked up and was startled to see little Eddie coming in, carrying what looked like a hollowed out pineapple, having placed the orchids in there. Stan watched in awe as Eddie carefully set it down on the nightstand. “Th-thank you, Eddie. That was very kind of you.”

“I didn’t want you to have to watch them die,” Eddie said softly, touching one of the pedals gingerly. God knows when the last time he had seen something so vibrant or lively.

“Now we can watch them die slowly,” Richie chuckled. He quickly silenced himself when the other two frowned at him.

“I just wanted to make something,” Eddie mumbled, sitting on the edge of the bed and hiding his face from where Richie could see, his cheeks glowing red. “I left the fruit in the fridge.”

“Sorry, man. I didn’t mean it like that. Yeah, they look… nice.”

“They’re my… wife’s favorite flower,” Stan said quietly. _Were_ her favorite flower, Stanley thought ruefully, as they were in a place beyond that point of time now. Not wanting to think about it, not wanting to swell, he didn’t elaborate.

“I like poinsettias,” Eddie said, breathing in one of the orchids. “They make me think of Christmas. I miss Christmas.”

“I’m Jewish, but… yeah, they’re very nice.”

Eddie looked nervous, like he was using the flowers as a distraction, so Stan exchanged quick looks with Richie.

“Hey, Eds,” said Richie. “You want to get in bed? It’s been a long day.”

“Can we go outside?” he asked hesitantly.

“Of course we can!” Richie said, immediately swinging his legs off the bed, causing Eddie to smile brightly in return.

They had already fed Eddie with some (hopefully fresh) food they found in the fridge, but he was still a little weak in the legs to walk down the stairs. Not wanting to overcrowd him, Stanley and Richie both watched him carefully until they went outside, both silently delighted to see his face light up in the soft breeze when they stepped out into the back yard.

“When was the last time you went outside?” Richie asked.

Stanley shot him a look, because he thought it was a rather rude question, but Eddie didn’t seem to be too bothered by it, having just accepted this weird place he had been thrown into abruptly.

“I can’t remember,” Eddie sighed, closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths of the fresh air. 

“How… old were you when they brought you there?” Stanley asked, knowing that Eddie likely didn’t realize it had been his birthday when they left, having been asleep for that conversation.

“It was summer still, I think,” Eddie replied, keeping his eyes closed, his brow furrowing slightly. “I turned 25 in November.”

Richie reached up like he was going to put his hand on Eddie’s shoulder, pausing briefly and thinking better of it before dropping his hand, not sure if Eddie wanted to be touched or not. Stanley felt a pang in his chest thinking about that, being locked away somewhere and suffering for over two years, having no idea when he’d come out. As much as _he_ wanted to find a way to fix this, find any way to get back to his wife and continue his normal, happy life, the idea of sending Eddie back to that place was horrific. God knows what else they'd all be sent to.

***

Patty was alive. It was a lot to prepare for, psyching himself up to see his now _93_ year old wife. This wasn’t how it was going to be, he reminded himself. He was going to find a way to get back to her, just the way she was. But right now, in this time, Stanley was going to do everything in his power to let her know he _was_ alive, and he hadn’t abandoned her, despite what Beverly had told them otherwise.

“So they all think we died?” Richie sighed ruefully, staring at the torn scrap of paper Beverly had given him. Eddie was back to clinging, wrapping his frail arms around Richie’s arm and pressing into his side like a touch-starved koala. “It’s unbelievable… Sadie and Patrick _married_ , like fucking old people.”

“They _are_ old,” Ben reminded him. “It’s been fifty years for you, Richie.”

“I wonder if they’d still let me join in their little lovenest,” Richie chuckled.

“Wait, were you all… together?” Stanley asked. “Like…?”

“A throuple?” Bill finished for him.

“Yeah, man. The three of us were peas in a fucking pod. With the occasional other pea,” he added, winking down at Eddie, who looked simply in awe at the idea.

“That sounds… messy,” Stanley frowned, though trying his best not to be judgemental.

“Nah, not when you got love and respect, man,” Richie shrugged. “So, how are we going to get out to these places?”

“We can take public transport,” Beverly said. “There’s a bunch of bottles in the garage, we can collect them all for change and you guys can take the buses.”

“You wanna take a trip with me, little love?” Richie whispered softly down to Eddie, who smiled back up at him as his cheeks burned red.

“Are you sure?” he said very quietly, a little embarrassed by the presence of the others in the room.

“Absolutely,” Richie beamed, pinching Eddie’s cheek and making him giggle into his arm. The others silently suspected he was still at least mildly out of it and thinking most of this was a delusion concocted by the torments from the asylum.

“Maybe someone should come with me?” Stanley said rather loudly, a strange pang of jealousy rippling through his chest at how _cutesy_ these two were. 

“The buddy system is a good idea,” Bill agreed, nodding. “I can go with you, if you want.”

“Perfect,” Bev sighed. “Anyone else doing field trips?”

“The rest of us should stay here,” Mike said. “As a general rule, maybe we should split as evenly as possible. Four-three, in and out of the house.”

“Good idea,” Bev nodded. “Any more news on the… turtle?” 

Some of the others groaned, but Bill stayed stoic, shaking his head. “Nothing new since I heard from him. I think… I think I’ll need to meditate again.”

“You just want more weed,” Richie grumbled. 

“Like you _don’t,_ ” Bill retorted. 

Beverly got her own bed in the room closest to the upstairs bathroom. Ben and Mike agreed to share a bed together, leaving Bill on his own as well (which was something the rest of them silently were ok with, hoping not to hear anymore of this turtle business), since the other three had all decided to try staying together. It wasn’t so bad logistically, since Eddie was so tiny, and the other two were rather thin as well, especially compared to the brawny bodies of Mike and Ben.

Before they went to bed, Mike was drinking water alone in the kitchen, watching Eddie carefully while he munched on some crackers, carefully trying not to overeat too much at a time while he got used to eating decent food. The news that he had died horribly in the asylum didn’t seem to phase him so much.

“You don’t mind that?” Mike asked him carefully. “Being close to Richie like that?”

Eddie shrugged. “No. Who’s around to make me stop? You don’t mind, do you?” he added a little nervously, his eyes darting up to where Mike was watching him.

“No,” Mike assured him. “It’s… really nice, actually. I wish I could’ve had that, too…”

Eddie carefully put the saltines down, reaching over to tug on Mike’s sleeve. “Come here,” he said softly.

Hesitant, but curious, Mike moved closer to where Eddie was sitting on the counter, until his small arms wrapped around Mike’s waist, squeezing him tightly. It was warm and sweet, and Mike immediately reciprocated and put his arms around the smaller man, rubbing up and down his back.

“What, uh… what is this for?”

He felt Eddie take a deep, relaxed sigh against his chest. “So you don’t have to wish for it anymore. We’re already stuck here. There’s no point in depriving ourselves of whatever we want.”

Mike smiled at that, a little bit sadly as he thought about William, how wonderful it could’ve been if he could’ve stolen him and brought him here with him. Being around Eddie and Bill was odd; Bill had his lovers’ name and Eddie looked so very much like William, it was unnerving. Still, he was happy thinking there were others like himself that had escaped the terrible places they had been. 

***

“When do you think we should head out?” Richie asked Stanley, taking his shirt off and getting under the covers. 

“What time, do you mean?” Stanley said, fluffing his pillows. “Early, I suppose.”

“We can’t go tomorrow.”  
“Why not?” Stanley snapped a little harshly.

“It’s Wednesday, isn’t it?” Richie shrugged, settling down. “It would be better to wait for the weekend.”  
“What are we supposed to do until then?”

“Dunno. Figure out what we can do until this whole intergalactic turtle business is over with? Besides, I’m not letting Eddie out of the house tomorrow.”

“ _Letting_ him out?” Stanley repeated, feeling a bit heated.

“Relax, man. I don’t mean it like that. I’m just saying, he _died_ of malnutrition, you really think it’s a good idea for him to be wandering out someplace new?”

Stanley pursed his lips, because yeah, Richie was probably right about that. There weren’t any books that they could find in the house, and he wished he had asked the others to check out some books from the library while they were out. He was getting antsy, trying to nod along to whatever Richie was blabbering about until Eddie came back into the room. 

“Hey there, gorgeous,” Richie beamed when he entered the room. “There’s pajamas on the dresser if you want to change for bed.”

Neither of them expected Eddie to just start changing right then and there, both of them respectfully looking anywhere else. Eddie had probably quickly gotten used to whatever this weird dynamic was after they bathed him this morning. Besides, Stanley thought, he was probably used to not having any privacy in the asylum. For a brief moment, Stanley got a glimpse of Eddie putting on his flannels and saw terrible bruises on his hip bones.

“Where do you - where should I sleep?” Eddie asked, tentatively approaching the bed.

“Do you want the edge of the middle?” Stanley asked.

Almost about to get up, Stanley started a bit when Eddie hopped over him to squeeze between them, making Richie giggle beside him. Another pang of jealousy hit him as he watched Richie pull Eddie in, wrapping him up close to his bare chest. It _shouldn’t_ make Stanley jealous, realistically. He had this waiting for him somewhere, some _when_ with Patty, and he knew he would get it back deep down. Looking at the two men beside him shouldn’t make him feel like this.

“Light, Stanley?” Richie murmured quietly, taking his glasses off to place on the nightstand beside him.

Stanley sighed, turning over to flip the switch on the lamp next to him, welcoming the darkness that surrounded him. He could hear Eddie faintly whimper and Richie whispering to him soothingly, but he tried to keep his mind focused where he wanted it; Patty. Perhaps he’d wake up in the morning and find that this had all been a long, bizarre dream. One could hope, anyway. 

Still, he turned over, scooting just ever so closer to Eddie to place a hand on the other man’s waist, a little reminder that, even if this was all in their heads, Stanley was still there beside him.

“I’m glad we’re dead,” Eddie yawned sleepily. “I don’t want to go back.”

***

All the cans and bottles collected from the garage gave them a whopping $5.70, which, as it turned out, was _not_ that much in their new time period. Not even the slightest. 

“The prices for everything are ridiculous, man,” Richie whined while Eddie counted the change again. “The fucking government is milking everyone dry, trying to separate the lower and higher classes and rule over us - ”

“Yeah, yeah, we get it,” Beverly waved him off. “The Man is evil.”

“Which man is this?” Eddie asked sincerely. 

“Don’t,” Beverly warned, pointing her finger threateningly at Richie. “We’ve got enough going on without you filling his head with conspiracies.”

“I miss using my brain,” Eddie sighed, neatly but unnecessarily organizing the piles of quarters. “I miss running my store…”

“You had a store?” Mike asked.

“Yeah,” Eddie sighed. “It was my dads. He wanted me to go to college, but after he died my mom made me take over the store.”

“What were you gonna study?” 

“I would’ve loved to have been an engineer,” Eddie smiled sadly. “Been an inventor or something. I’ve always been good with numbers.”

“Math is bogus,” Beverly said.

“I’m assuming that means stupid, to which I totally agree, man,” Richie nodded. “Good for you though, Eds. You could’ve been Alan Turing of your time or something.” 

“Who?”

“Uh, just… a really smart person,” Richie explained terribly. “Also was gay though.”

“Huh?” Eddie and Mike said simultaneously.

“Homosexual,” Richie elaborated, making quotation marks with his fingers. 

Soon, after finding some more spare change around the house, four of them were ready to take the bus out of town, with help of some maps Beverly had printed out from the library on Thursday and explained before they left.

“There’s a machine just… makes this in seconds?” Eddie asked before leaving, staring at the paper in awe.

“Don’t even get me started on the mini computers everyone had in the library, small enough to put in their pockets. It was like a TV, Walkman, and Video Game console all in one.”

“I don’t - I don’t know what that means.”

“I’ll explain roughly half of that on the bus,” Richie offered, putting his arm around a confused Eddie’s shoulder. “Let’s get going so we don’t miss it.”

“Can you explain it to me, too?” Mike asked Beverly, who was already getting a headache.

***

“Do these look ok?” Stanley asked Bill on the bus, messing with the orchids Eddie was very kind to have helped preserve for him. “They’re not wilting or anything?”

“They look fine,” Bill assured him, running a hand through his hair, still not used to the length since Beverly chopped it short. “How long have you been married?”

“Four years,” Stan told him, feeling a little lighter, happy to think about such better days. “We met two years before that. We were young, happy, despite all the horrible things happening around us. We had each other; that’s all we needed.”

“I was married,” Bill said quietly.

“Was?” Stanley frowned. “You mean…? Are you saying that because we left? She could still be alive. Why didn’t you look her up?”

Bill sighed. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen her. Even in 1977.”

That was a bizarre idea to Stanley, who could barely stand being away from his wife during his shift at work. The last three or four days had been long, and it hadn’t just been because he was trapped in a bizarre house in an unknown place and time, but because his best friend and love of his life was missing from his daily routine. They had not spent a single day apart since the night of their wedding.

“Are you nervous?” Bill asked. “I imagine it’s going to be unusual. Do you think she’ll know it’s you?”

“Of course she will,” Stanley said firmly.

The bus came to the stop Beverly had pointed out for them, and they took the short walk to a building claiming to be an elderly living space. It made sense, but it still made Stanley feel uneasy, not knowing who his wife had taking care of her here.

“May I ask who is here to see her?” one of the nurses asked up front.

“Uh, her - her nephew,” Stanley stammered. “He’s - he’s just here for the ride, he doesn’t have to come.”

“I’ll be right here, buddy,” Bill said, squeezing Stanley’s shoulder. “It’ll be ok.”

Stanley nodded, attempting to give Bill an encouraging smile that probably came out more as a grimace, since Bill looked worried before Stanley started following the nurse into what they called the ‘entertainment room.’ Stanley was sure his heart was going to pound out of his chest until he practically felt it abruptly stop altogether.

In the back corner of the peach-colored room, Patty Uris sat on a floral sofa, staring dreamily out of the window where two birds were splashing in a small fountain. Stanley had never once looked at an older woman in such a way before, but God help him if she still wasn’t the most beautiful sight he’d ever laid his eyes on. His hands shook around the pineapple holding her flowers, glad as hell that it wasn’t in some slippery glass vase, swallowing roughly as he slowly made his way to her, unsure how she was going to react.

“Patty?”

It wasn’t immediate; it took a moment for her brow to furrow and her head to turn and catch his eye, her startling blues still full of life. Stanley couldn’t help but smile brightly at her as they met each other’s gaze, her face lifting into a subtle and unfazed smile.

“Stanley,” she breathed.

Stanley let out a relieved laugh, quickly placed the makeshift vase on the table in front of her, moving to sit just at her side, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. A surreal feeling overcame him, his eyes swimming with overwhelming tears, his chest welling uncomfortably. Her expression did not change as she took his hand in her own, soft and frail, sighing contentedly.

“It’s about time,” she said softly, turning to look out the window. “I was afraid we’d be late for the movie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :(((((((


	4. Cars and Closets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a pretty heavy-reddie focused chapter, but we start to see Bill finally stop being a turd and interacting with people like a normal person.
> 
> Enjoy <3

“So you’re not even… the least bit freaked?”

“It’s not the weirdest thing I’ve seen.”

At that, Richie had to reel back, laughing incredulously. “Sadie, you must’ve got into some good hash after I left then, because this is _wild_.”

Richie sat at one of the barstools in her kitchen while Sadie made them a pot of coffee. All the drapes of the windows were open, and Richie could see out to the driveway where Patrick was showing an extremely fascinated Eddie an old (for today’s standards) Chevy Impala that he had been working on. He couldn’t help but smile fondly at the sight, how patient Patrick was being as he showed Eddie the intricacies of motor vehicles.

“I met a vampire once,” Sadie explained. “Down in ‘Salem’s Lot. Also heard of a girl in Chamberlain that blew her school up with her mind.”

Out of respect to the bizarre things that had happened to him, Richie couldn’t muster an argument for any of those things. Instead, he smiled up at her while she poured him some ‘dirty bean juice,’ as he tended to call it.

“Where’d he come from?” Sadie teased, smirking as she handed Richie a kitsch looking moose mug.

“A very long time ago,” Richie explained. “Way before our time.” He couldn’t help but look Sadie up and down and click as tongue as he winked at her. “I gotta say, Sads, you’re still a fox.”

“Easy, tiger,” Sadie tutted, ruffling Richie’s hair in a way that made him feel uneasy. “I’m a taken lady.”

“Uh, _taken?_ ” Richie intoned. “Did Patrick buy you from your father with a goat?”

“That’s not what it means,” Sadie sighed, as if she were already exasperated by the conversation. “Life on the road got… tiring. We grew out of it. We wanted to settle down and make a life for ourselves.”

“How soon after I _died_ did you realize that?” Richie muttered bitterly. “I mean, I guess I left you the van and the perfect excuse to fuck off without me.”

“We never knew what happened to you, Richie. One day we woke up and you were just _gone_. That’s not exactly fair to expect us not to move on from that.”

Richie grunted in response, feeling a tinge of regret at coming here. He blew on his coffee to distract himself, carefully taking a sip while Sadie continued to look at him rather sternly. 

“You’ll figure it out one day, Richie. You’re, what, in your mid-twenties? You have plenty of time. And now you have a new life to start. I’m always telling Avery - ”

“Who?”

“My grandson, Avery.”

“ _Grandson_ ? You have _kids_? And - and _grandkids_?”

“That’s what happens when people get older, Richie,” Sadie said, smiling at him sadly. “Well, most of the time. Avery is almost your age now.”

“You have a grandson… who is almost my age,” Richie said quietly, still a bit in disbelief. “That’s… that’s so strange, man. How many do you have?”

“Three grandkids,” Sadie told him. “All girls, we thought at first, then Avery told us last year that he _wasn’t_ , so we threw a big party for him so he could tell us his new name. We just have the one son.”

“Hmm,” Richie hummed, sipping his coffee. “What’s his name?”

There was a moment of silence and Richie finally looked up at her, pausing when he saw that she was giving him a soft, sad smile.

“Richard.”

***

“How fast can it go?” Eddie murmured, running his finger alone a shiny paint strip. 

“Well, it _can_ reach up to 100,” Patrick chuckled. “But you’re gonna want to stick with the speed limits, Speedracer.”

“My neighbor had a, uh,” Eddie snapped his fingers trying to think. “A Rolls Royce, I think? He’d let me drive it into town sometimes because he always got nervous behind the wheel. I always loved it. Rode a little rough though, they never paved the roads outside the main town center.”

“Rolls Royce? Nice. What year was it?”

“Um, 1921.”

Before Patrick could comment on that, taken a bit back, he looked up and grinned as Richie and Sadie came outside. His smile did falter though, as he saw Richie lean against their garage and frown down at his feet.

“Eddie, we can get going if you want.”

“But I wanted to take a ride in the car,” Eddie pouted. 

“Nah, let’s cut out,” Richie grumbled. “We oughta get outta their hair.”

“Richie, take it easy,” Sadie said, but Patrick raised his hand.

“Rich, why don’t you come here for a minute? Here, Eddie,” he added, tossing the keys over at the smaller man, who beamed ear to ear. “Play around with it, just don’t mess with the gears! Keep her in the driveway.”

Richie groaned, reluctantly following Patrick to the side of the house, looking back briefly to see Eddie excitedly hopping into the front seat of the Impala. He wanted to feel more ecstatic about seeing Eddie happy, but he just felt _bummed out_.

“Cute kid,” Patrick chuckled lightly.

“He’s our age. My age,” Richie corrected, sighing as he leaned his head back against the side of the house. They weren’t goddamn children. “Look, man, I know I’m acting like a giant baby, I just… It’s been _four days_ for me, Patrick. And look, I’ve been trying to figure out ways to - to go back and fix things. I’m not sure how yet.”

“Fix things?” Patrick frowned. “Richie, you - there’s nothing to fix. Whatever happened, you can have a _great_ life here. Sadie and I, we had a great life - ”

“Without me,” Richie bit. 

“That wasn’t really a choice, Richie.”

“What would’ve happened if I didn’t disappear then, huh? After you two got sick of living with me?”

  
“Being on the road wasn’t… good for me, Rich,” he heard Patrick say, hearing him shuffle his feet. “I know I didn’t talk about it much, but… I was an awful kid. A _terrible_ , troubled kid. I grew up a bully and pretty much an asshole and I realized that far too late after hurting one too many people. That lifestyle that you had, it was… appealing to me. Running away was just a distraction from problems I should’ve been facing.”

“I was a distraction,” Richie sneered quietly.

“All of it was,” Patrick admitted quietly. “I needed stability. Instead, I threw myself into the arms of people I thought would’ve helped me become carefree, but… over time, I realized I _should_ be caring more.”

“I would’ve settled,” Richie whispered, not able to look Patrick in the eye. “I would’ve gotten a house, a job. Anything. I wanted _you_. You two were more to me than a lifestyle, Patrick.”

He couldn’t see him, but Richie felt Patrick lean next to him, sighing deeply. “I loved you, Richie. Please don’t forget that.”

“No,” Richie scowled, wiping a traitorous tear that spilled down his cheek. “You loved an idea of me you had in your head.”

They stood quietly for a few moments, Richie silently thankful that Patrick was not paying attention to his face as he tried to collect himself, willing any more tears away before they threatened to fall.

“I was going to donate the car,” Patrick said beside him. “Why don’t you take it?”

“The _car_?” Richie scowled, looking over at Patrick’s still-startlingly old face. “Why?”

“Sadie and I are going to Greece,” Patrick explained. “We’re leaving the house to our son so his girls can have a place with a yard. I could stay here, spend some time in chemotherapy, but I’d rather spend my last days enjoying my time with her. A few extra months aren’t worth spending in the hospital. You can even have the rest of my weed if you want, since I can’t take it on the plane.”

Deep down, there was a pit in Richie’s stomach that ached to comfort Patrick, maybe even beg to spend those last few days with him, too. It was one thing to run into your near-80-year-old lover after fifty years; it was another entirely to just be told they were dying. Instead, Richie shrugged, offering as little emotional weight as possible.

“I suppose that’s the least you can do.”

***

Jealousy and anger twisted in Richie’s gut as he sat in the passenger's seat. It wasn’t for at least ten minutes that he realized what he had done by sulking and moaning quietly, allowing Eddie to _drive_ them back to the house.

“Do you have any idea where you’re going?” Richie asked a little harshly.

“I have a compass in my head,” Eddie smiled, tapping his temple.

Well, that’s a weird fucking thing to say.

“Maybe you should let me drive,” Richie muttered uneasily. 

“I know how to drive,” Eddie assured him. “It’s a little different than I’m used to, but the roads are all small and the car is easy to figure out. Besides, what could happen to us?”

“Uh, a fucking car crash?” Richie snapped. “We could fucking die, man.”

“We’re already dead,” Eddie said cheerfully, giggling a bit.

Richie shook his head, shifting in his seat to stare at him. “Eddie, we are still _alive_ and I would very much like to keep it that way so I can try and go back _home_. Please, pull over so I can drive.”

Something shifted in Eddie’s face, like a dark wave just passed over him. “What do you mean go home?”

“I mean, go back to my time, man. I’m already sick of this future. I’m going to talk to Bill about the turtle bullshit, and then I’m cutting out of here.”

“B-back,” Eddie said quietly, his voice stained. His fingers gripped the steering wheel tighter. “No… no, I’m not - I’m not going back, we - we all had something terrible happening, we - ”

“Horrible shit happens to people every day, it’s not my problem.” The second it came out of his mouth, Richie felt his gut drop in hot, waxy guilt. Shit. “I didn’t mean that,” he tried, but it was too late. 

Richie was thrown forward, the seatbelt briefly cutting into his neck from his awkward position after Eddie slammed on the brakes. He attempted to pull the strap from his body, looking over to see Eddie heaving large gulps of air where he was gripping the steering wheel, tears swarming his eyes.

“I can’t go back,” he cried, gasping a bit for air as he was beginning to hyperventilate. “I can’t - I can’t - ”

“Eddie, I’m sorry! I didn’t - ”

“ _Don’t touch me!_ ”

One of Eddie’s fists thrust into Richie’s neck just as he reached over to calm Eddie down, knocking the air from his throat, gasping as he fell back and Eddie threw himself out of the car. All Richie’s attempts to shout out to him were futile, coming out as raspy gasps. He struggled out of his seatbelt, fumbling out of the car to run out to where Eddie had stopped just at the edge of the forest that lined the long strip of road. 

Richie approached Eddie carefully, still rubbing his neck as he tiptoed to where Eddie was hunched over, clutching his knees as he sobbed towards the ground.

“Eddie, I won’t let you go back,” Richie said softly, tentatively reaching a hand out, slowly becoming hyper-aware of how this might look to outsiders. “I promise. I won’t let that happen.”

His hand reached Eddie’s shoulder, triggering some sort of defense mechanism as Eddie dropped to the ground completely, curling up into a ball. 

“Shit,” Richie muttered, rushing over to check to see if the other man fainted, but he was still crying silently and clutching the grass. “Eddie, we have to go - ” _home_ \- was what he wanted to say. “ - we have to go back to the house. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”

Nothing he said for the next few minutes helped, watching Eddie slowly become catatonic, eyes staring out into the void as he quieted down. At this point, Richie felt he had no choice but to scoop him up and put him in the car before someone saw and started asking questions. People were assholes in _any_ time period, it seemed.

After buckling Eddie in, making sure he was at least sat up enough not to get hurt while they drove, Richie took off. It didn’t take long for him to realize he had no idea where he was going, having nothing but a bus schedule and a whimpering little man who lost his marbles and was now pulling the hood of his sweater over his head and yanking the draw strings until his face was hidden.

“Uh…”

“Left at the next corner.”

Richie looked over and, indeed, Eddie still had his face hidden in the hood, but alas, since Richie had no other option, he took a left at the next corner as he was told. Somehow, even with his surroundings hidden from sight, Eddie seemed to always know when they had to turn, because they ended up back at their weird disappearing home. The condemned woods disappeared as Richie pulled into the property, the house making itself known like a veil had been removed. 

Not a second after he stopped, Eddie had sprinted out of the car, managing to get in the house and slamming the door shut behind him before Richie could even react.

“What the fuck did you do to him?” Beverly shouted the second Richie stepped into the house.

“Nothing!” Richie lied, because he was definitely being an asshole. “Is he ok?”

“He’s in the closet,” Mike muttered, looking down the hall in slight distress.

“Well of course he is, but where did he go?” Richie didn’t even wait for a response, rolling his eyes at his own stupid joke, walking down to the hall closet and knocking softly.

All he got back was the sounds of scratches against the wood, sounding like they came towards the ground. So Richie knelt down, making himself comfy, and waited.

The second group's trip didn’t seem to go any better. Richie watched as Stan sauntered into the house, his expression dead as a doornail. Not saying a word to anyone, he went up the stairs, likely going to hide in the bedroom or in another one of his baths.

It had been an hour and Richie was still on the goddamn floor.

“Are you going to talk to me or just keep scratching the door?” Richie huffed.

“It’s morse code.”

Richie snapped his head up at Bill, who had just entered the hallway. “What?”

“It’s morse code,” Bill said again. “He’s telling you to go away and he doesn’t want to talk.” There were a few more taps and scratched on the wood. “That means, ‘yes.’”

“How do you know morse code?” Richie asked grumpily.

“My brother taught me,” Bill shrugged. “I can wait by the door with him.”

Sighing reluctantly, but defeated, Richie got up off the ground, looking back at the door one last time before heading off to bed. “Can you try - _morsing_ with him for me? Please.”

“Sure,” Bill smiled, moving to sit on the ground. 

Richie sauntered over to the stairs, much in the fashion Stanley had, although he wasn’t really sure _where_ to go if Stanley wanted to be alone. It might’ve been worth it to ask, at least. 

***

_.- .-. . / -.-- --- ..- / --- -.- (Are you ok)_

_-. --- (No)_

Bill thought for a moment, turning to lean against the wall as he tapped.

_-.-. .- -. / .. / .... . .-.. .--. (Can I help)_

_-. --- (No)_

Bill sighed, knowing that this sulking, self-deprivation funk could last a very long time. After all, Bill’s managed to last the entire time he was in the cabin, if not longer. Before he could think of what to say, though, Eddie tapped back a lengthy sentence.

_-.. --- -. - / -- .- -.- . / -- . / --. --- / -... .- -.-. -.- (Don’t make me go back)_

_.-- . / -.-. .- -. - (We can’t )_

A brief pause.

... ..- .-. . (Sure?)

_-.-- . ... (Yes)_

He couldn’t help but startle when the closet door burst open just next to his face. Eddie has his knees pulled up to his chin, looking almost as much as a wreck as he had been when they first got here.

“How do you know?”

“Time doesn’t work like that,” Bill told him. “The turtle said he dropped us off where he knew It wasn’t going to be. He said he only took us because he - the turtle - was weak, and It was gonna eat us, I guess. He said It feeds on fear, so It was going to eat all of the terror we experienced in our last moments when we died.”

“So we were just dumped here as an afterthought?” Eddie whispered back.

“I suppose so. Whether or not It was defeated, I don't know. But It’s not here right now, so I guess we’re safe.”

Eddie nodded, as if this was just a normal thing people dealt with. “Everything is real?”

Bill frowned at the question, but quickly realized how crazy someone like Eddie must have felt in this situation, after spending time in a place where he was literally deemed an insane person. “Yeah, we’re real, man. We’re all real. You haven’t lost your mind.”

Whether or not that was truly comforting, it was hard to say, for Eddie simply nodded again, resting his chin on his knees. They were all the same age, quite literally to the very day, but a childlike innocence and kind of sadness radiated off of Eddie that poked at Bill’s protective instincts, much like they had done when he saw his brother upset.

“What are the 70s like?” 

“Uh. Not very interesting. There was a long war. We had an oil crisis. To be honest, I was in my head throughout most of it. Where did you learn morse code?” Bill asked curiously.

“I had a lot of free time,” Eddie shrugged. “Stayed indoors a lot during the influenza. Didn’t want to get sick. I did a lot of reading, tried to learn new things.”

“Know any languages?”

“ _Tak. Trochę_.” Eddie smiled, lighting his face up immensely, and Bill smiled back despite not knowing what he had just said, but it sounded positive. “I suppose that doesn’t count, though. My father is from Wrocław. He didn’t teach me much though; he didn’t want me to have an accent. He was made fun of a lot when he came from Poland.”

“Well, I guess we will have a lot of free time now that we’re here,” Bill said softly.

“What do we do?”

That was the question, indeed, for the turtle did not say a damn thing about that.

“I guess we… survive best we can.”

***

Since Stanley had retired to the bedroom, Richie wandered upstairs, seeing what everyone else was doing. Beverly had taken Mike to the library again, hoping to gain as much information from this _Internet_ as they could, just to get a rough idea what they _could_ do and how. Ben was alone in his bedroom playing with a deck of cards.

“So, whaddya do for fun, Benny Boy?” Richie made his presence known with an air of annoyance from Ben. “Play the bongos? Slam poetry?”

“And what exactly is it you do, besides smoke large amounts of reefer?”

“Who, me?” Richie grinned, pulling out a baggie he had gotten from Patrick. “C’mon man, smoke with me. Take a few hits, it’ll feel good.”

Ben watched as Richie sat on his bed, pulling out some papers to make these sorts of cigarettes, he thinks. There was something off about Richie’s demeanor, like he was masking tension and distress. 

“It really figures you pick the weirdest clothes in the closets, here,” Ben smirked, eyeing the pineapples on the button-up that Richie refused to, well, button up.

“And you are still entirely depressing in all black, my man,” Richie replied.  
“What do you think of Beverly?” Ben blurted out. 

“She’s funny. Stubborn. Always has cigarettes. She’s a good guy, I guess.”

“A good guy?” Ben repeated, laughing a little bit. “I suppose that doesn’t matter to you, right? You were with… you slept with just about anyone.”

“Not anyone,” Richie clarified, his jaw clenching a little. “I just didn’t care about anyone’s junk. People are quite beautiful if you look closely, Ben; if they’re good inside..”

“Hmm,” was all Ben could think to say to that. Most of his childhood he was called many unflattering things, often because he usually had interest outside of what standard masculinity deemed acceptable. Having someone here that saw everything on some sort of… spectrum, or otherwise just not adhering to any standards at all outside of just human decency, was an exceptional concept. 

“Mike wants to have a garden,” Ben told him.

“Is that so?” Richie replied absently.

“What else are we supposed to do?” Ben shrugged, leaning back against his headboard. “We might as well get used to each other and try to make something of this.”

“Cool. Always wanted to be part of a concubine.”

“A - you mean a commune?”

“What did I say?”

“Nevermind,” Ben chuckled. “We should probably a - a meeting or something to talk about what we’ll all be doing. What are we going to do for money? How does this place even have electricity?”

“Maybe we can ask the turtle to pay the bills,” Richie muttered, shaking his head. It looked like he had successfully made enough ‘cigarettes’ out of the baggie he took out, putting all but one away. “Got a light, man?”

“Downstairs.”

“Then downstairs we shall go.” 

Richie got up, sticking the joint between his teeth and gesturing for Ben to follow him. He was staring down at his outside, wondering quietly if he _should_ probably add a little more color to his wardrobe, and didn’t notice Richie had stopped short, running right into him. Before he could make a remark, he looked around Richie’s shoulder and saw Eddie sheepishly standing there, rubbing his arm awkwardly.

“Hi,” he said quietly.

“Hey, man,” Richie replied just as softly.

“You feelin’ better, Eddie?” Ben asked cautiously; a small part of him nervously wondered if, regardless of his indifference to Eddie’s sexuality, if there was still any other reason Eddie might need some severe psychiatric help. Seeing him shut down today didn’t exactly spike his confidence, especially not after the last several days of hearing Eddie make weird, bizarre statements.

“I’m sorry I didn’t think anything was real.”

Yeah; statements like that.

“No, it’s ok,” Richie assured him. “I didn’t - I didn’t mean to freak you out in the car. Scare you,” he clarified, as Eddie frowned at his choice of vocabulary.

“But we’re all better now, right?” Ben asked. “We all know we’re all real and everything?”

“And we’re not going to send you back,” Richie said. “No matter what, I won’t let that happen.”

Eddie knew that he couldn’t, but there was something comforting still about Richie’s reassurance, his desire to protect him. “Promise?”

“Super promise,” Richie beamed, tentatively reaching out to the other man. Eddie didn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around him again, squeezing him tight around the waist and making Richie chuckle. “All right,” Richie sighed, grinning over at Ben. “Let’s get you motherfuckers stoned.”


	5. Bedside Manner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After a few weeks having only each other for company, some unpleasant feelings erupt in the group. Also some... pleasant ones. 
> 
> I really love how much people are liking this and I can't say enough except ty ty ty! Your words are always kind and inspiring and now I can only hope but not disappoint you! Anyway, enjoy!

The wind is starting to bite, but Mike doesn’t mind so much when he has a warm shelter to go into and the ability to adjust the actual temperature inside his house. Every time he fiddles with the knob, he wants to kiss whoever invented such a thing, feeling the central air pump heat from above his head. They never got any bills. Nothing ever turned off. Whatever had placed them in this strange house had blessed them with resources and Mike was beyond wanting to question it.

Unfortunately, due to it already being so late when they got here and was now nearing December, he couldn’t start a garden like he wanted to, not a good one. Bill had made himself accustomed to house plants and offered to help set up a sort of indoor garden in the garage, keeping the car Richie had brought outside since no one could see the property anyway, and no one seemed to bother walking into the area. Whether or not the house would even make itself known to other outsiders was beyond their understanding.

Like Mike had previously thought: he was beyond wanting to question things.

Despite how cold he thought it was, he walked outside to see Eddie and Beverly lying on the lush grass in the backyard, both on their backs and using each other’s shoulders as pillows as they laid head to head facing up at the sky with their eyes closed.

“What’re y’all doing?” Mike asked, sitting cross-legged where their heads met. “Aren’t you freezing?”

“Just enjoying the sun and talking,” Eddie said, opening his eyes and blinking up at Mike through the sunlight.

“We’re bonding over shitty parents and shitty spouses,” Beverly sighed casually. “And how nice it is that since they’re dead we’re single in every aspect one can imagine.”

Mike wasn’t quite used to the course language some of the  _ newer _ people in the house used, but he still smiled politely down at her. “I can’t even imagine. My dad was my best friend. Then to be married to someone just as cruel to you just sounds… terrible.”

Simultaneously, Bev and Eddie spoke, Bev said, “I ended up marrying my dad,” at the same time Eddie said, “I ended up marrying my mom.” It could have been humorous if it weren’t so sad.

“How’s Stanley doing, by the way?” Bev asked, turning her head slightly towards Mike and rolling over. 

“He doesn’t say much,” Mike said softly. As little as Stanley  _ did _ say, it was usually only to Mike, often ignoring the others’ attempts at conversation, even if Richie’s was nonstop. They recently made some arrangements so that Stanley was now sharing a room with Mike. “I offered to go back and see his wife with him, but…”

“But he wants to move on,” Beverly said with almost certainty. “As he should. It’s been a while since we got here - ”

“Maybe for you,” Mike interrupted, a little more harshly than he intended. “It’s been a month and some of us didn’t want to leave who we left behind. It’s different for us.”

There was an unfamiliar kind of anger building in his chest, but it quickly dissipated when he felt Eddie’s hand on his own, looking down to see it gently touching where they rested together on Mike’s lap.

“I’m going to check how Bill and Ben are doing with the, uh,” Beverly snapped her fingers awkwardly, trying to figure out what she meant to say in her embarrassment.

“The table building?” Eddie finished for her.

“Yes. That.” She got up, brushing off her leggings and hurriedly going into the house.

“She didn’t mean anything by it,” Eddie said once she was out of earshot, scooting around to rest his head in Mike’s lap, which was… very nice. Mike always appreciated when he or even Richie were so affectionate, making him feel far less alone in this place. Most of them were still getting used to each other.

“I know,” Mike assured him, unable to help himself from running his calloused fingers through Eddie’s soft hair, the gray streaks shining in the sunlight against the dark, hickory strands. That was one of the biggest differences Mike noticed, but Eddie otherwise resembled his lover William almost identically. “Do you have anyone that you miss from your time?”

“Not a damn soul,” Eddie affirmed, closing his eyes and leaning into the palm of Mike’s hand. “It’s much better here. Everything’s ducky.”

“I guess I’m glad they were just going to kill me and be done with it,” Mike said softly, not really sure why he was sharing these horrible thoughts. “Hearing what they do to people in that place you were in…”

Eddie’s brow knit together, frowning but silent while Mike looked down at him. He was sure that it was too much for Eddie to talk about and looked over to the house.

“What kind of stuff do you want to put in the garden?” Mike asked, trying to change the subject. “It can’t be anything too big, they’ve all got to fit in the shed.”

“What can grow the fastest?” Eddie asked, opening one eye up at him.

“Just the herbs,” Mike sighed. “The other crops will take a while to sprout anything we can use, but it’ll be something. In the meantime, I suppose we just…”

“Keep stealing,” Eddie nodded, smiling a little mischievously. “It’s ok, Mike. We don’t technically exist anymore. With everything else we’ve been lucky with, I feel like we won't get caught.”

“I just don’t like the idea of taking away from someone who might need it,” Mike admitted. 

“Bev and I are only taking from the stores,” Eddie told him. “Trust me, you should see these places. They’re packed out with food,  _ too _ much food. If anything, we’re just saving waste. People nowadays sure waste a lot…”

“People nowadays,” Mike intoned, chuckling a little. “We sound like grandpas.”

“Well you know what, if we’re thinking linearly I’m technically 117 years old, so I’m gonna sound however the fuck I want.”

Mike reeled back slightly, raising his eyebrows and pausing his hand running through Eddie’s hair. “Really pickin’ up the language there, huh? Richie’s been getting you half-seas over on his reefer and you’re talking like a sailor.”

Eddie giggled and the sound of it resonated through Mike so profoundly, he couldn’t help but beam down at the other man.

“It’s kind of fun, though, don’tcha think? Just saying what we feel like. There’s literally nothing I can worry about here.”

Most of them are happier here, and maybe Mike can think that’s worth it. He wants to be happy with them, but he can’t help but feel a piece of himself is missing.

“I think… it’s about time I start making dinner,” Mike sighed, not really wanting to get up and keep feeling Eddie’s presence, but knowing no good would come of just sitting here in the wind. Still, he looked down to see Eddie looking just the tiniest bit disappointed that he had to get up, even if his cheeks were starting to blister from the breeze.

***

Beverly can’t really help herself, standing in the doorway with a smirk on her face and watching Bill and Ben trying to figure out why everything was sliding off the top of the ‘table’ they finished making. Honestly, Ben was the only one in the group who had any right going near furniture and tools besides Mike, but Bill had  _ insisted _ on helping and it appeared to just make things worse.

“The legs are sanded down too much,” Ben explained to him, a hand on his forehead in distress. “I told you to leave them alone.”

“They were splintering!”

“Are you planning on giving the table legs a handy while we eat?” Ben exclaimed. “Why did it matter? Now they’re all jacked up, ya mook.”

“Boys,” Beverly chuckled, startling them both. “Settle down. We can use some newspapers and hold up the other end.”

She tried her best to ignore the way they both just stared at her while she took some small piles of newspaper that Bill had been collecting, kneeling down to shove them under the wonky table legs. Bill immediately lifted the side of the table for her to slip the paper under, hoping it would suffice until they fixed it later. Neither of the buffoons said anything as she did this, and she couldn’t help but roll her eyes in the silence. 

In all fairness, all six of them were idiots in their own special ways, Beverly was coming to realize, but these two seemed to dumb down a few notches whenever she walked into the room. 

“All the brain juice rushing to your dicks or something?” she said bluntly.

Ben cleared his throat awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. “No, uh, nah that’s a good idea. We can fix it later. Cool.”

“Cool,” Bev repeated, looking over at Bill. He still didn’t say anything.

Yesterday - oh, well, of  _ course _ they’d be extra awkward after yesterday.

Yesterday, Bill had said something weird, and he wasn’t unknown to do such a thing after the whole turtle incident. At least with Eddie, when  _ he _ said weird shit, they chalked it up to him just having been through hell for the last two years. Plus, when Eddie said something outlandish, he  _ knew _ what he was doing, and sometimes he just said things for the fun of it because he  _ could _ and no one could stop him, like a kid testing the boundaries of his new settings. Sure, it took him a little bit once he realized this wasn’t all some fever nightmare aftermath of his years-long torture, and a lot of time he’d be pretty normal or even revent back to being shy. But now he was saying what he wanted and the others just got used to him and Richie acting like chaotic children trying to make the best of this situation.

With Bill, though… his eyes would sometimes go hazy, like he wasn’t really looking at who he was talking to, or even really realizing what he was doing at all. Then something would come out of his mouth to make someone stop in their tracks and he’d act like he never said a damn thing at all and just move along. After a certain point, one had to question his sanity.

The thing about yesterday, though, was that it was the first time since the turtle that he acknowledged what he said and did something about it. Staring at Beverly in the backyard, smoking together in the brisk autumn air, one of his hands gently touched her shoulder until she looked back at him.

“The Shine brings us together,” he said firmly. “We’re all meant to be.”

“Dude, what the fuck?” Bev couldn’t help but blurt out incredulously before Bill moved in to kiss her.

Startled and confused and a little bit angry, she shoved him off. “Dude…  _ what the fuck _ ?” she exclaimed again.

“Shit,” Bill muttered. “I probably wasn’t supposed to do that yet.”

“ _ Yet _ ?” Bev shrieked. “Don’t fucking do that, ever!”

“Yeah… I’ll see what the turtle says.”

Not an hour later, Bill was back to acting like nothing bizarre had happened and Beverly tried to forget about it, too. Because even though she was in a house with six men, one of them was outwardly coming to terms with being gay and most of the others seemed ready to kick the ass of anyone that  _ would _ touch Beverly. Despite his foul mouth and choice of words, Richie never really laid a hand on anyone unless explicitly told it was ok (or kindly reciprocated, that is). Mike and Stanley both seemed too damn respectable to even look in her direction sometimes, at least when she wasn’t wearing the clothes from upstairs that made her look like a handmaiden.

Now it was kind of hard to tell if Bill was being his regular weird self or was still embarrassed about what had happened between them.

“Well, thanks for setting up the table for dinner, lads,” she offered them, going to sit down on the most table looking chair they found. “It will be nice not eating on the floor or over the sink like a rat.”

“It’s the least we can do,” Ben smiled. “I’m starting to feel pretty useless around here. Not much call for architecture living here.”

“Or writing,” Bill concurred, nodding slowly.

“Surprisingly, I might be able to do some stuff with the clothes we found in the house,” Bev said, checking out her own shirt that she was wearing. “I’d like to at least get some fabrics or something, though.”

“At least we’re not the most useless people here,” Ben muttered, taking a seat for himself almost on the complete opposite side of the table as Bev.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

He gestured his head upstairs to where she was sure Richie was showering and Stan was still wallowing. Bev shot him a look, but he raised a hand in defense. “Look, I get that one guy is having a tough time with his wife and all, but all Richie does is bash ears and smoke.”

“And you don’t?” Beverly bit.

“He did get us a car,” Bill offered, shrugging and leaning against the kitchen counter, keeping a distance from the two of them. “And the pot  _ did  _ help us out a little bit.”

Ben looked like he was on the verge of rolling his eyes, scoffing over at Bill. “Besides getting you so baked you went into another dimension and talked to a space turtle…”

“And the car,” Bev reminded him, because he seemed to have forgotten already, determined to dislike Richie for some reason. “I think it’s also fair to say he’s been the one keeping us from all going crazy with boredom and shit. You can tell he’s hurting bad after he went to see his family or whoever that was and he’s still trying to make us laugh all day. Give him a break.”

“Right,” Ben mumbled. “We get ourselves our very own clown. Cause I missed the other one so much.”

“Why are you such an asshole to him?” Beverly snapped, making him look up at her sheepishly.

“There’s just something… off about him.”

“Well that sounds like  _ your _ problem, so keep it to your damn self.”

“Mike and Eddie are coming in,” Bill told them, looking like he wanted this to de-escalate as quickly as possible. 

“Maybe Mike has some input on the matter,” Ben shrugged.

“On what matter?” Beverly asked, sneering at him.

He didn’t answer, though, waiting patiently for Eddie and Mike to come in through the sliding back door behind the kitchen, visible in the space between the counter and hanging cabinets.

“Gentlemen, we were thinking,” Ben started. “What do you think the best assigned roles for everyone should be?”

“Nothing,” Eddie said immediately.

“Well, it can’t be  _ nothing _ ,” Bill stated, but Eddie shook his head

“Why do we  _ have _ to be assigned to do anything?” Eddie asked seriously. “Richie’s always saying the assigned house roles are sexist - ”

Ben audibly groaned and they could see Eddie’s face redden. 

“How about this,” Bev interjected before a fight could break out. “Why don’t we just make a list of things everyone is good at and we’ll share everything that way? It might be useful if we have to eventually start getting real jobs and stuff.”

“We’ve been doing just fine for the last month,” Eddie grumbled. 

“We’ve been tolerating each other and surviving,” Bill said.

“Richie has actually been giving me a lot of recipes,” Mike informed them, surprising both Ben and Bill. “I just don’t like him cookin’ when he’s all messed up on his reefer.”

“Weed,” Bev reminded him gently. “That’s very helpful though, Mike. Maybe you can let him help out a bit more in the kitchen?”

“Richie can help out with a lot of stuff,” Eddie said quietly. “So can I.”

“You gave enough input on Richie,” Ben huffed. “Thank you, Eddie.”

“Why won’t you let him talk?” Bev asked him harshly.

“‘Cause the little lunatic is obsessed with him! You really want to entrust anything with the lousy homeless cat and his pet?”

“Cool it, Ben,” Bill implored quietly, but Eddie was already leaving the room, shoulders tense as he walked away.

Ben did look guilty the second after he said it, but it wasn’t fair, even if Eddie  _ did _ say and do some bizarre things, because he sometimes proved to be smarter than the rest of them, if just a little bit out of the loop sometimes. Ben was about to open his mouth again to apologize, but Eddie turned quick and jabbed his finger in Ben’s direction with a dejected scowl on his face. 

“I’m  _ not _ fucking crazy,” he croaked, voice breaking before going up the stairs, Mike following behind him.

“Look what you did,” Beverly hissed at Ben. “Why are you back to being a douche?”

“A  _ what _ ?” Ben said genuinely.

“A tool. An asshole. A piece of shit. A fucking - ”

“We’re all upset,” Bill interrupted her. “We’ve all had days like this since we got here.”

“It doesn’t give him the right to treat Eddie like that! Or hate Richie for no reason!”

“I didn’t say it did,” Bill said rather calmly. 

“I don’t know why I said that,” Ben admitted quietly. “I think I’m…”

He paused, his cheeks flushing pink as he fidgeted in his seat. The other two were looking at him, and his skin crawled uncomfortably as he tried to process his thoughts, because he knew the word that was on the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t want to let it slip past his lips. The only sounds now are some faint but disgruntled voices from upstairs, which they figure is Stan getting torn up about pillow placement or shower residue that someone might have left.

Mike trotted down the steps again soon after, a strangely serene expression on his face, his mouth curled into a dopey smile. “I can, uh… get dinner started so we can eat soon. Would one of you like to help me?”

“I’ll help,” Bill said immediately, turning to walk back around the counter into the kitchen area with Mike. 

Beverly sighed, pulling her (stolen) cigarettes out of her pocket, turning to look at Ben and swallowing down her desire to keep yelling at him. “Wanna go for a walk?”

***

Richie was confused as hell, having just been shoved until his backside hit the corner of the dresser after Stan shoved him into it. It was made all the more confusing since, for some reason, after so long of moping around silently like a depressed ghost, Stan broke his trance by waiting in Richie’s room and kissing him after he came back from his shower. Caught off guard, Richie couldn’t help himself but reciprocate, only for Stanley to start shouting at him.

“I don’t understand what’s happening, man,” Richie noted after Stanley finally stopped yelling.

“Nothing is happening!” Stanley grunted in frustration, trying to keep his voice down now, moving to slam the door shut that Richie had left open. “I’m not - I’m not getting all khaki wacky over a man, for Pete’s sake.”

Richie had to take that in for a moment, biting his tongue to stop himself from pestering Stan about  _ khaki wacky _ , but he tried to approach Stanley gently, keeping his hands up in surrender (and where Stanley could see them).

“Stanley, it’s ok if you’re feeling… confused,” Richie assured him quietly, kind of kicking himself for his choice of words. “I know this shit has been a drag, but you gotta mellow out.”

“ _ Mellow out _ ,” Stanley repeated. “I should be snapping a cap and murdering someone. I’m losing my damn mind.”

“Totally understandable, man,” Richie agreed, close enough now to place his hands on Stan’s shoulders, thankful that he allowed him to do so. “You’re lonely. You’re upset. And, usually when you feel those things, you had your wife, yeah? It’s not… wrong, what you’re feeling, wanting to be close to someone. Plus, Bev is the only woman here, and she’s a bit scary sometimes…”

“I’m starting to forget about her,” Stanley said quietly, his eyes looking down. “I’m starting to forget what it was like to be home. Everything is blending in with being here. I’m scared because… I kind of want to forget. I don’t want to remember the stuff that’s hurting me anymore.”

“Why don’t we go for a drive?” Richie suggested. “I can get dressed and make Eddie drive us around, up the mountains or something.”

“No. I don’t want you to get dressed.”

“Wh-what?” 

Stanley looked up at him, eyes dry and firm, reaching up to take Richie’s hands off of his shoulders and place them on his sides. “I keep watching you. The way you look at Eddie and me, even when you think I don’t notice. I can feel it making me… hot inside. I’ve been pushing it away, but it’s still there right under the surface of my skin. It’s not because I’m lonely. It’s not because I miss someone else. But maybe because of those things, I’m willing to stop pushing.”

It wasn’t often that Richie was at a loss for words, but he only blinked down at Stanley for those few seconds before Stanley kissed him again. Really, he couldn’t stop himself from kissing back this time, because Stanley was right, and he had been looking and he had been  _ wanting _ , but he was in the habit of keeping his hands to himself unless otherwise told not to, even if his mouth often ran like a brakeless freight train sometimes. Now, Stanley was yanking Richie down onto the bed with him, Richie who had nothing but a towel on and wet skin, fervently kissing Stan back with all his pent up, aggressive need to touch someone else.

Stanley’s touch was shaky, his body torn between hesitancy and need, not knowing how to touch the person that was on him, finding it strange to feel the other man’s stubble against his own cheeks, feeling his bare, wet chest flat and firm. Yet Richie was kissing him with ease and patience, almost like he was guiding Stan’s hands and mouth to where they needed to be, his tongue surprisingly graceful.

“You gotta tell me what’s off the table, darlin’,” Richie breathed, his hand taking Stan’s chin to turn his face away slightly, kissing down his neck.

“What - what do you mean?” Stan asked, not used to the way his skin tingles at the contrasting rough hands and soft kisses on his throat.

“What are you comfortable with?” Richie asked, looking at Stan sincerely. “You gotta call the shots, otherwise I’m going to be all over you.”

Stanley gulped, his heart fluttering with a little thrill in his chest. He was about to answer, nearly about to just throw his hands up and tell Richie to just do what he wanted, when the bedroom door opened.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is uhh almost done :) I'm just fiddling with some things and may possibly change the rating to explicit depending on how my beta feels (please not I don't usually beta, this is only for purposes of tagging/rating for viewers sake!)


	6. Faithless Feelings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Morning (or otherwise) to you all! I promised eventually smut and I’m delivering! Also, it’s nothing explicit or crazy but there’s some implied self harm ideation so I added a tag! If you need some chapter spoilers for CW, please see below, otherwise carry on!  
> Also if you’re not as interested in the smut aspects, my apologies (I can’t help myself)
> 
> *****cw/contains spoilers for smut: Digital penetration, double digital penetration, Making out, frottage, anal sex********

“Eddie, wait!”

Eddie almost shouted, but instead his body shut down and his legs gave out, falling limply to the floor when someone grabs his shoulder. He can’t really help it, this weird defense mechanism his body has been trained into, just dropping onto the floor away from danger, the furthest away he can possibly get from someone hurting him. Once his body is curled up fetal on the ground, he realizes it’s Mike gently kneeling down where he’s still on the steps at the top of the stairs.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked gently.

“No,” Eddie whispered, embarrassed but willing himself to get up again with some help from Mike’s sturdy hands. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Are you going to be ok?”

Eddie nodded silently, but Mike took his chin gently to look up at him. “I’m ok, Mike. All berries.”

“Berries,” Mike chuckled, smiling down at him and making warmth spread in Eddie’s chest. “Haven’t heard that in a while, old timer.”

“Don’t let me keep you,” Eddie assured him, reaching up to take Mike’s hand that’s still gently touching his face. “Make dinner so we can eat and stare at each other in awful silence instead of yelling.”

“Promise me you won’t let that stuff get to your head,” Mike asked, bringing both his hands up now to cup Eddie’s face, large and warm against Eddie’s colder skin.

“I - I promise,” Eddie whispered, feeling a bit breathless staring up at Mike and feeling how hot his skin was against his own. His heart practically flipped in his chest when Mike leaned down and left a soft peck on Eddie’s forehead.

“Please be gentle with yourself. Let the other boys know dinner is starting.”

Eddie smiled up at him and continued to beam down as Mike’s frame disappeared down the staircase. Sighing almost dreamily, he turned to look for his bedroom where one of the others might be. He can’t hear the shower and thinks maybe at least Richie is in the bedroom as he opened the door.

“Mike’s going to be starting dinner,” Eddie says, not realizing what he just walked in on until he looks up, the door already shutting behind him. “Oh.”

“Hey Eds,” Richie said rather casually, moving to get off of where Stan is laying and blushing as his obvious erection is now in the open where Richie had undid his fly.

“Hi,” Eddie breathed, his cheeks reddening as he started to reach back for the doorknob. “I can - I can leave you two - ”

“Don’t,” Stan blurts out, surprising them all, himself included. “Stay.”

Stan almost wants to laugh at the way Richie’s head snaps towards him and Eddie’s eyes widen, but he’s not stupid. He’s felt it almost since they got here, he knows they want each other as much as he wants both of them, and Eddie is as lost as he is. This could help both of them, having Richie here to coach them through this when neither had any idea what they were doing.

Stanley sat up and guided Eddie over onto his lap, letting him sit on him facing where Richie was now in front of them. Stan let his hand gently glide over Eddie’s chest from where he’s sitting behind him and can feel how intense his heart is beating so he pulled him a little closer against his own chest while Richie was stroking Eddie’s face.

“Have you two kissed yet?” Stanley asked, because he’s not really sure, curious if they’ve done anything in privacy away from the others. 

“N-no,” Eddie said quietly, swallowing roughly and fidgeting in Stan’s lap. “I wanted to but I didn’t want to scare him.”

“Scare  _ me _ ?” Richie chuckled, gently caressing the back of his hand down Eddie’s cheek, the movement making even Stanley shiver. “You could never do that, sweetheart.”

Richie's eyes dart between the two of them and there’s something dark and meaningful behind them that Stanley can’t decipher. But they’re looking at Eddie now, who is like a deer in headlights staring at him from where Stanley is craning around his shoulder, gently rubbing up Eddie’s sides. 

It’s exhilarating sitting here not just with Stanley holding his waist, but the intensity of Richie’s eyes staring at him has Eddie sweating and almost dizzy, completely forgetting about anything else that may have happened in the day (hell, maybe even his life). A small whimper escapes him when Richie takes his chin, and his reaction rolls through into Stanley like a domino effect, squeezing Eddie tight where he’s watching Richie lean forward and Eddie feels his mouth on his own. The softness of it has Eddie melting in Stanley’s arms, moaning in the back of his throat and opening his mouth immediately to match Richie’s movements as he quickened his pace.

Men were always rough in a malicious and hurtful way, never looking at Eddie as a person when they had tormented him in the hospital. But this is so different, almost otherworldly, and Richie’s thumb pries Eddie’s mouth open more to slip his tongue between Eddie’s teeth, making his mind go fuzzy, both wanting to push himself closer up to Richie and press his body down into Stan.

Eddie gasped when Richie pulled off of him, the hand on Eddie’s chin roughly turning him into Stanley, who is now kissing him too, much clumsier and awkward than Richie was, but still fervent in his movements as he grinds his hips up into Eddie’s ass. Richie is watching them in awe and he lowers his hand off of Eddie’s chin once he sees that Eddie is kissing Stan hungrily back. Eddie’s legs are open and Richie presses himself into the space there, sandwiching Eddie and sucking on Eddie’s neck while Stanley is slipping a hand up his shirt. Everywhere their hands touch sends more chills through his flesh, yet a warmth in his chest blooms, and Eddie feels like he’s getting drunker off their hand movements the more they’re touching him.

Any mortification Stanley thought he’d feel has dissipated, now only feeling hungry for whatever the hell this is. Not knowing what he should call it but not even caring and just  _ feeling _ . Eddie feels so eager against him, his small hand fisting in Stanley’s hair where he’s twisted in Stan’s lap, licking along his lips like he’s trying to emulate the way Richie must’ve been kissing him. Richie is kneeling down and they can vaguely feel Richie helping Eddie’s pants off .Neither of them can stop themselves from running their hands up Eddie’s legs. 

“Stanley, why don’t you move into the bed more,” Richie says, but it almost sounds like a command and both of them are eager to listen. 

Stanley clutches around Eddie’s midsection tightly so he can scoot them both backwards until his back is against the headboard and he can relax more. Stanley lets Eddie put all his weight on him while Richie crawls onto the bed. 

“What do you want?” Richie asked, and he’s talking to them both but neither of them have an answer and just stare up at him eagerly wanting to do  _ something _ . “Eddie, have you done this before?”

“Sort of,” Eddie squeaked, high-pitched and breathy. He’s never said anything to them, not aloud, but they’ve had enough context clues to understand what he means, and neither of them think  _ that _ counts, so Richie asks again: “What do you  _ want _ ? I’m not making you do anything you don’t want to.”

“I - I want - I want someone inside me.”

“Ok… Stanley, wet your fingers.”

“With - with what?” Stanley stammers.

Richie guides Stanley’s hand away from Eddie’s thigh into his own mouth, and sucks on two fingers that Richie gently slips in. He doesn’t really know what Richie has in mind, but he gets excited just knowing something is  _ happening _ .

“Get them nice and wet,” Richie instructs before sticking his own fingers in his mouth and drooling all over them without any chagrin. His other hand gently pushing apart Eddie’s legs. “Eddie, you’re gonna tell me if anything hurts, ok? Never be afraid to tell me to stop.”

Eddie nodded silently, spreading his legs out even more to show how much he was aching to do this, causing Richie to grin down at him as his hand snaked up through Eddie’s boxers. The soft whine that leaves Eddie’s throat has Stan’s dick jumping up from where it’s buried beneath his small body, squeezing around Eddie even tighter as he feels Eddie squirm while Richie is doing whatever he’s doing.

“Does that feel good?” Stanley whispers in Eddie’s ear, making the smaller man whine again. He partly wants to make sure Eddie is enjoying himself, and partly is curious to know the feeling for himself and wants to hear it vicariously through Eddie.

“Y-y-yeah,” Eddie stammered, pushing himself down further onto Richie’s fingers, slipping down Stan’s chest slightly. “It feels really good, Richie.”

“I kinda miss you calling me Satan,” Richie grins, leaning forward and kissing Stanley next to Eddie’s face, his mouth wet and warm before he pulls away to kiss Eddie again.

“What - what can I do?” Stanley asked, his fingers twitching and eager to touch both of them.

“Here,” Richie says, pulling his fingers away from Eddie just to tug Eddie’s boxers off before quickly pulling his own towel off. 

Stanley doesn’t know where to look because he’s never seen another man’s erect dick before, only having seen both of these two naked the one time when he helped them shower together weeks ago. He’s already in awe by how much he’s getting turned on by the sight of them both and groans in Eddie’s ear. 

“Richie,” Eddie whimpered, taking one of Stanley’s hands in his own and squeezing it tight.

“Don’t worry, little love,” Richie cooes, using his dry hand to take Eddie’s chin gently. “I’m too big for you right now. I won’t let you be hurt. We can start with Stanley first, ok?”

Stan almost wants to argue, because he doesn’t really see much of a size difference between the two of them, but Eddie relaxes immediately and leans his head back on Stanley’s shoulder, which just feels so fucking  _ good _ .

After Richie worked into Eddie just a little bit more, telling Stanley to keep wetting his fingers, he guided them down to meet his own between Eddie’s legs. Stan can’t help but gasp as he feels Richie and himself slide into Eddie’s hole together. Both Stan and Eddie moan in sync to the sensations they’re feeling as his and Richie’s fingers moving along inside Eddie.

“Tell him how good he feels, Stan,” Richie breathes, his eyes darting hungrily between the two of them as he’s stroking himself. 

Stanley isn’t used to talking while doing such things and knows it’s not going to come out naturally, but he tries his best. He leans right into Eddie’s ear, while keeping his eyes on Richie’s. 

“You feel so great, Eddie,” Stan whispers, feeling the other man shiver against his breath. “Does it feel good for you?”

And that feels much better, making sure the other person is enjoying themselves.Richie is coaxing them the whole time while Eddie just nods breathlessly and whimpers in Stan’s grasp. 

“Keep talking,” Richie encouraged, kissing across each of their shoulders and letting his free hand run up Stanley’s thigh. “Keep telling each other how you’re feeling. Tell each other what you want.”

“Are you ready for me, Eddie?” Stan hears himself ask, which takes him by surprise. He’s enjoying this for what it is but he can’t deny that his dick is straining in his own underwear where it’s pressing against Eddie’s back. He didn’t know what his original intentions may have been with Richie, but having Eddie here is helping. They’re both so new to this and Richie just seems happy to guide them through this first time together. 

It’s especially helpful that Eddie is so enthusiastic, turning his head to kiss Stanley again while Richie pulls their fingers out. For a moment, Stanley wants to be grossed out hearing Richie spit, wetting Eddie up more, but instead it only spurred him on more. Their position is a little nerve wracking. He’s never had Patty like this, never mind that he’s never been with anyone else, let alone a man, let alone  _ two _ men.

“Hold yourself up a little, love,” Richie murmured to Eddie, helping him pick his hips up and releasing some of the pressure from Stan, who was now eagerly pulling his own dick out.

Eddie leaned back against Stan’s chest, both of them helping him keep his hips up, Stan relishing the feeling of his hands spreading Eddie open, watching with anticipation as Richie helped guide Stan into him. 

The usual terrifying feeling is absent from Eddie’s gut and instead filled with a floaty, high feeling he was getting used to from Richie’s weed. Part of the reason Richie is talking so much (besides the fact that he’s always talking) is to keep Eddie from drifting off somewhere in his head. Like he usually has to do when someone is touching him and having him like this. But this is different, this is something  _ he _ wants and is craving and they’re both making it so good for him that he’s trying to get lost in  _ that _ feeling instead.

Stanley can feel Richie’s hand over his own, leading him into Eddie where he can’t see. Somewhere in the back of his mind he feels a pang of jealousy over what Richie can see from his point of view, especially as he feels Eddie quiver at the sensation of Stanley pushing up into him. His jealousy only lasts so long before he forgets about anything else besides how tight and warm Eddie is around his cock.

Both of them cry out asRichie stares down, completely enamored by the sight of both of them together for the first time. Seeing them gasp and pant once they feel each other is a sight Richie knows he won’t quite get again, so he takes a mental picture and vows to try and make it this good for them in the near future. It takes a few moments for them to take it in and Richie can’t help but chuckle, reaching around to tap Stan on the thigh.

“One of you has to move, baby.”

“Right,” Stan gasped. “I know that.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Eddie admits sheepishly, his voice a little strained as he pants and does his best to move his hips slightly.

Richie helps Stan get a hold of Eddie’s thighs, moving so he was pressing Eddie’s legs inward slowly, watching both their faces carefully. Finally, Stan is able to maneuver his hips enough to thrust, moving up into Eddie freely, adoring the noises Eddie made while he did so, and was comfortable enough now to start kissing up Eddie’s jaw and shoulder. 

“God, you’re both so fucking gorgeous,” Richie says, leaning forward and caressing both of them wherever he could. The praise makes both of their chests swell, even if Stan would’ve complained about the language under any other circumstance.

“Richie, can I touch you?” Eddie whines, one of his hands reaching back to fist Stan’s curls and pull his face into Eddie’s neck. “Please?”

“You can do whatever you want, sweetheart,” Richie preened, thumbing Eddie’s bottom lip.

“Touch yourselves together,” Stan encouraged Eddie, unable to help himself from voicing what he wanted to see. His chest fluttered when Eddie let out a breathy little giggle at his instructions, reaching over to take Richie in his small fist. Richie is helping him guide their cocks together so Eddie can stroke them both.

That’s the sight that finally does Stan in, completely lost and enamored in seeing Eddie spread out, Richie’s large cock rutting against Eddie’s. Stanley lets out a small moan when he feels the ecstasy rolling into him, knocking his head back against the headboard. He’s vaguely aware of Eddie calling both of their names in small cries and the weight shifting on the bed as Richie leans forward to kiss Eddie quiet again, his moans muffled against Richie’s lips.

As Stan’s movements slow down, one of Richie’s hands takes his face, having him look up at Richie over Eddie’s shoulder.

“You ok holding him still for a minute, dove?”

Stan nodded quietly, still a bit lost in his head as he comes down from the high of sex. Eddie just stares up at Richie, whose hand slowly traces down his chest towards where Eddie has been stroking them. “I’ve gotcha, sweetheart. Just hang onto me.”

Eddie let go to let Richie take over, whimpering a little at Richie’s more experienced hand on him. He reached his free arm up around Richie’s neck, the other still fisting tight in Stan’s hair, who was still panting beside his ear. It wasn’t long before Eddie finally came too, Stan still buried deep in him with his hands on Eddie’s hips, Richie licking into Eddie’s mouth as Eddie moaned against his tongue. He could feel Richie’s lips curl up into a smile as Eddie finished before finally relaxing against Stan’s chest again.

It would have felt perfect, Eddie and Stan laying there after their elation started to slowly come down, Richie smiling down at both of them. Except with his post-come clarity, Stanley was starting to panic.

“Eddie, get off,” Stan said rather firmly, and his tone made Eddie freeze, worry etched all over his face.

Already ready to grab him, Richie reached down and helped Eddie up as Stan pushed Eddie off of him, stumbling out off to the side of the bed and frantically trying to get his pants back on.

“Stan…?” Eddie squeaked nervously, but Richie gently placed a finger over his mouth.

“Take your time, Stan,” Richie said softly, looking sadly over at him. “It’s - ”

“ _ Stop _ ,” Stan snapped, making Eddie jump in Richie’s lap. “I shouldn’t have done this. I don’t know why I did this. I need - I need to take a bath.”

“You’re fine, Stanley,” Richie assured him, squeezing Eddie closer to him, knowing Eddie was feeling scared by Stan’s hostility. “We’ll be here if you need it.”

To that, Stan grunted in response and rushed out the bedroom, the door slamming a little bit behind him. 

“What did I do?”

Eddie’s voice was so quiet, Richie almost didn’t hear him. He sighed, shifting a little bit so his legs weren’t bunched up under him, careful to make sure he didn’t let go of Eddie as he did so.

“Nothing. Stan’s just scared. I probably shouldn’t have done that...”

“We shouldn’t have?” Eddie asked, looking up at Richie with concern.

“No, no, I mean -  _ you _ didn’t do anything wrong, Eddie. This was my fault. I should’ve taken things slower, I got a little worked up…” He took Eddie’s face gently, thumbing his cheek. “How are you feeling?”

The first word to pop into Eddie’s head was  _ empty _ , because the high he had felt had plummeted so fast after Stanley had started to stress. All the good, sweet feelings in his chest now felt hollow, but he wasn’t sure if it was necessarily a  _ bad _ feeling. Not wanting to make Richie feel worse than he probably already felt, he said honestly, “That all felt really good. Before Stan left. I’ve never felt that good before.”

A smile quickly spread back on Richie’s face, leaning over to gently kiss Eddie on the cheek just along the side of his nose, making Eddie smile in return. 

“I wanna do this again with you,” he said shyly.

“Me too,” Richie beamed. “Just say the word, baby. I’ll be all yours.”

Eddie giggled, hiding his face in the crook of Richie’s neck. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Make me feel all…  _ gooey _ . You’re so good at  _ everything _ .”

Richie chuckled, wrapping his arm around Eddie’s shoulder, squeezing it tightly. “Relative, my love. I once met a fox that told me I was as good a lay as a sloth.”

Eddie frowned. “Please explain why you’re referring to animals.”

Richie laughed harder, snorting a little bit. “A fox is like… a babe. A sexy girl. I think I just really bummed her out. I always made Sadie and Patrick happy, though.”

In the brief silence that followed, they could hear a faint squeak which they knew to be the hot water knob for the tub next to Richie and Eddie’s room. Dinner was going to be ready soon, too, and Eddie couldn’t stop the sensation of guilt that swept over him.

“Richie?”

“Hmm?”

“Mike kissed me,” he said. It wasn’t a  _ real _ kiss, but Eddie could feel the intentions behind it pretty clearly and he wasn’t sure how it would make Richie feel. “I can tell him not to do it again, though.”

“Why would you do that? I thought you liked him?”

“I… do, but… what about you?”

“Eds,” Richie said, pulling Eddie back to look at him again. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not the jealous type. You like Mike. If he likes you, you guys shouldn’t let anything stop that.”

“But should I… be with you when that happens?”

“Do you want me to be there?”

“I don’t… I don’t know. I thought just… maybe you should?”

“The only  _ should _ is that we should all be happy. Were you upset when you saw me and Stanley together without you?”

Eddie thought about it and answered truthfully. “No. For some reason I just… I mean, I think I was a little upset that I wasn’t there, but… I didn’t mind you two being together on your own.”

“See how easy that is? It’s all about mutual respect, love. The most important thing is being honest with each other. I mean if everyone is happy, isn’t that all that matters?”

Eddie couldn’t help himself, reaching up to take Richie’s face and kissing him again, letting his insides get warm and melt under his skin. There was something akin to a spark he felt for everyone here at some point or another, but he couldn’t lie to himself and say Richie probably wasn’t his favorite person to ever exist. Once they pulled away, Eddie was still grinning like a dope.

***

This wasn’t fair. 

Stanley could remember their wedding day like yesterday, whispering softly over to his bride as he slipped the ring onto her finger.

_ “With this ring, you are made holy to me, for I love you as my soul.” _

What a way to treat something holy; leave them in an elderly home all alone and run off to have relations with men he  _ barely _ knew.

But she was slipping from his memory and these people, these people he had known for just a month, were taking over his mind instead. They didn’t always get along, often clashing over petty things, but there was something between them, subtle but made aware by humming beneath the surface. 

Stanley slipped deeper into the hot, steaming water of the tub, staring ahead of himself and letting the water wash over his guilt. His head lolled over to the side, looking over at the bottles of soap and shampoo and the meesely little razorblade someone had left here. He’d eyed it before, several times during the weeks he’d spent here wallowing in hopelessness and fear of never leaving. Still, he hadn’t picked it up despite how desperate he had been on many occasions. He sighed into the heat around him, maybe realizing he wasn’t feeling so bad after all, pushing the thoughts of the razorblade aside once again, thinking now that would probably be a stupid thing for him to do. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiiiii so I hope you enjoyed this! I kinda love that it’s technically Streddie but is really Steddie with Side Dish Richie just happy to be there.
> 
> I’m gonna be trying to focus on my Halloween Project that I’m supposed to post by the 30th, so that needs to be a priority, but I might have time between bouts of writing my crack fic gore to dabble back in this :))


	7. Reconciliation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions ease between the group with some simple communication.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3 Welcome back. I'm alive and hoping to write a lot more! We'll see how that goes, but thanks for your patience!  
> We return to our stupid Losers trying to figure each other out. Very Eddie-focused as I tend to be, hope you don't mind <3

“So, you mind telling me why you’ve been so hostile?”

Ben didn’t answer right away, taking a long drag from one of Beverly’s cigarettes as he gazed off into the dark woods. It really was a wonder how no one seemed to cross over into their yard, even by accident, like some teenagers sneaking around to find somewhere to drink stolen booze. Alas, it was quiet in both a haunting yet alluring kind of way; much like a lot of other things Ben had going on.

“It’s not them,” he finally said, eyes still fixed in front of him. “I think I’m honestly digging down deep to find the most cruel things possible to say just to keep my distance from them.”

Beverly took that in, understanding that instinct to lash out at people for things that she was dealing with. But neither Richie nor Eddie deserved the kind of words Ben was throwing out at them. 

“If you spend some time alone with them, are you going to be nasty?” she asked.

“Why?”

“Because maybe you should,” Beverly shrugged. “Work out whatever bullshit you’re dealing with and spend some quality time with them. Go out with Eddie to the junkyard this week.”

“The junkyard?” Ben asked, finally looking back at her.

“Yeah, he’s working on a, uh… project,” she mused. “Not sure what it is, but if he asks someone to go with him, you should say yes.”

Ben nodded slowly, finally flicking away the butt of the cigarette and stomping it out with his foot. Beverly kept staring at him, staring with those cool green eyes that somehow burned with fire behind them. He was afraid to keep talking about it, reveal the things he was really thinking, because they were not only terrifying to him but… well, he was quite worried how she’d take it. Finally, she killed the silence and spoke again.

“Why don’t we go back home, huh big guy?” she asked, patting his back. “Mike is probably making us something delicious; and if Bill is still helping, I’m sure it’ll be... interesting.”

Ben smiled tightly at her, quickly making sure he picked up his tossed cigarette butt so he wouldn’t trash the place or leave any signs of people out in the woods. They walked back in silence, but he couldn’t help but feel elated at the way their fingers would brush as they made their way back to the yard of the house. 

Mike was about to serve dinner with Bill, Eddie looking rather solemn at the table while Richie held his hand comfortingly. Ben had no idea if they had talked about what Ben had said earlier, but it seemed like it. He sauntered over to the ugly table with its mismatched chairs, digging his hands in his pockets as he gently approached Eddie.

“Hey,” Ben said softly, taking the seat adjacent to Eddie at the end of the table, right across from Richie.

“Uh, hi,” Eddie mumbled, looking up at Ben cautiously.

“I’m really sorry for before,” Ben said sincerely. “Truth be told, I’m a bit of a wet rag and I was taking it out on you guys.”

Eddie didn’t quite get the meaning but understood it in context well enough. “S’fine, Ben. Don’t worry about it. I’m used to it.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be,” Ben told him, a pang in his chest at what Eddie said, because Beverly was right: neither of them deserved the way Ben was talking about them. “I’m the jerk here.”

Eddie was still quiet, but Richie piped in, “Something else is upsetting him, so you can hang loose, man.”

“Yeah, I’m - uh - _cool_ , Ben,” Eddie assured him. “With us. It’s fine. Promise.”

“Cool,” Ben intoned, smiling at him. "Everything's... _ducky_ , right?" His eyes flashed down to where Richie was still holding Eddie’s hand and he felt himself blush, a flutter in his chest; best not to think about it too much.

“Where’s Stanley?” Mike asked as he finally sat down.

“Bath,” Richie said simply.

“Again?” Bill asked, frowning. “Didn’t he take one already?”

“He feels dirty,” Eddie grumbled.

Before anyone could retort to that, Richie clapped his hands together loudly. “Let’s eat, shall we! Mikey, my man, this looks amazing.”

*******

“Thank you for helping me clean up,” Mike said kindly, watching fondly as Eddie hopped up on the kitchen counter to rest his head against the cabinets.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Eddie shrugged. “Everyone else offered.”

“I know,” Mike professed softly. “It’s just nice to get some alone time.”

“Is it because I’m the only one here more lost than you?” Eddie teased. Just the smallest hint of sadness peaked through the look he was giving Mike; he was getting better and pushing those things away.

“No, it’s more than that. I just… can’t explain it.”

“Try.”

Mike sighed, throwing down a dish towel and sauntering over to Eddie until he could lean his hand down next to where Eddie was sitting. They stared at each other in a surprisingly comfortable silence before Mike tried his best to articulate his thoughts.

“You feel like a ghost.”

Eddie cocked an eyebrow but said nothing, waiting for Mike to explain further because a part of him was still worried he had lost his mind. The others had assured him that everything was real, that this wasn’t his imagination or purgatory, but statements like this still put him a little on edge.

“The thing is Eddie, you - you reminded me very much of someone I used to know. Someone who I feel like I’m starting to forget. Someone I - someone I loved. _Do_ still love, I think... ”

“So you like being with me because I remind you of him,” Eddie whispered.

“I like being with you because you don’t,” Mike clarified, although it made Eddie all the more confused until Mike continued. “I _thought_ you did, like you were some shadow of him walking around, but the more I get to know you the more differences I see, even if you do _look_ like him. I just - the problem is that the feelings aren’t going away. I’m recognizing you as a different person, but I still…”

“Have feelings for me like you did for him?” Eddie asked, his voice slightly strained. 

When Mike nodded, it somehow hurt Eddie’s chest as much as it did thrill him. There was a pain in Mike’s eyes, a longing for something he’d never have again; guilt, too. Eddie could understand that; even if he hadn’t endured such a thing for himself, he was gifted with empathy and could practically feel his own heart break after the incident with Stanley earlier. Richie had instilled the seriousness and importance of honesty, and being quiet still felt dishonest, even if Eddie wasn't technically lying.

“I had sex with Stan,” Eddie blurted out a bit more bluntly than he intended. Mike reeled back, blinking through his confusion.

“S-Stan?” he repeated. “Do you not mean Richie?”

“No. Well, he was there, too.”

Mike’s mouth fell open just the slightest bit, trying to take in what Eddie was telling him, likely not even sure what or _why_ Eddie was telling him. “That’s - uh - great. I’m happy for you?”

“Well, the thing is Mike,” Eddie sighed, starting to feel shaky and unsteady without Richie’s confidence behind him. “I really like you. I have a lot of… fondness for the people here. I don't really know why, but I don't want to question it. I spent my whole life being told what I was feeling was wrong and I’m done with all of that. So, I don’t want to hide any of it anymore, even if it’s strange or weird or different. So, if… if you’re ok with - with _that_ \- me sharing my affections - then I’d like to be with you. But I understand if you don’t. It just wouldn’t be fair to you if you didn’t know.”

As the words came out of his mouth, Eddie thought this would be it, that he was going to scare Mike away. Not everyone here appeared to be as appreciative of the openness, which was made very apparent by Bill and Ben’s reluctance to give Richie and Eddie a damn break before tonight. Yet, Mike didn’t shy away or look disturbed. Instead, he slowly lifted his hand to cup Eddie’s cheek, leaning in to kiss him softly.

The subtle differences in how people kissed was such a pleasant surprise. Where in Stan’s kiss there was steadiness, Richie’s a playfulness, Mike’s was all tenderness. Eddie couldn’t help but feel self-conscious wondering what his own kiss felt like, but he pressed himself up into Mike with a fire burning in his belly. Mike chuckled against his lips.

“Easy there, buddy.”

“Sorry,” Eddie breathed, trying to kiss Mike again, but Mike gently kept him back.

“You gotta give me a little time, ok?”

Eddie let out a steady breath through his nostrils, trying to keep a little bit of dignity and not pounce on Mike again. Slowly, he nodded, snaking his arms around Mike’s broad shoulders just to keep holding onto him. Nothing was quite like the physical comfort of being held by someone else and Eddie was nothing if not touch-starved. If this was all Mike wanted to do, hold Eddie firmly like this, that was totally fine with him.

*******

Richie sighed contentedly, resting his head back against the pillow as Eddie started sucking the nape of his neck. “You’re getting really good at that.”

“Yeah?” Eddie giggled, pushing himself up to nibble Richie’s earlobe. “I’m sure I can’t compare to anyone else you’ve been with…”

“Nonsense,” Richie breathed. “You’re immaculate.”

“You’re just saying that,” Eddie whispered, lifting his head to look at Richie.

“I’m not, love; cross my heart.”

Eddie leaned back from where he was straddling Richie’s lap. They had spent the last couple of nights with just the two of them in the bed, Stan having retired to the couch downstairs and retreated back to his grumpy silence. Eddie and Richie would've checked on him if it hadn't been for Bill and Mike talking to him every so often. So, it had just been them, enjoying each other’s company, Richie letting Eddie just pounce at him and kiss him and run his hands all over Richie’s body to explore everything he wanted to do. Well, except -

“Am I teasing you?” Eddie asked softly. “By not - you know - ?”

“Not at all,” Richie assured him, reaching up to stroke Eddie’s cheek. “You told me you were nervous about having sex again. Even if you didn’t, I shouldn’t _expect_ it of you. That wouldn’t be fair.”

Eddie trailed his finger tips down Richie's bare chest, thoughtful for a moment. “How do you feel about everyone else here?”

Richie looked up at him carefully for a bit before answering. “Probably the same way you do.”

“Have you - with anyone else - ?”

“No. Have you?”

Eddie shook his head. “Just with Mike - what I already told you. If that’s ok.”

“I already told you it was,” Richie said, sitting up and wrapping his arms around Eddie. “I promise you I don’t get jealous.”

“How does it work?” Eddie asked, snuggling into Richie’s chest, delighted in the skin on skin feeling between them. “Like, when you were with Patrick and Sadie?”

“I don’t really know the how of it, Eds,” Richie said truthfully. “But I do know that it shouldn’t be split and broken. You give a hundred percent, no matter what, with each moment and each person. No fifty-fifty bullshit. I mean, maybe you can pick up a little slack now and then, if you're not both feeling too hot, but that's why talking is important, you know? It's not really freedom if you're hindering someone else's.”

“Doesn’t that get exhausting?”

“I suppose it could be. Never did for me. But I don’t think it’s for everyone. Plus, you don’t have to have the same relationship with each person.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Richie started, running a hand through Eddie’s hair. “Stan seems like the kind of man that enjoys quality time; he opens up a little more with one on one attention, talking about his interests. Birds and such. Mike enjoys doing for everyone, and making small gestures and chores to help us all out. You’re definitely very… physical. You reciprocate well to touch.” He ran his hands up and down Eddie’s sides affectionately as he said that, somehow sending a shiver up Eddie’s spine and a warmth in his chest simultaneously.

“How are you so damn observant?” Eddie asked incredulously.

Richie smiled softly up at him. “The gift of the gab is that I get a lot of information in return, little love.”

Eddie smiled back, scooting his ass back just a bit so he could nestle his face into Richie’s neck. Yeah, he really _did_ love touch, sharing his affections with skin against skin. Part of it was probably from being so touch-starved so long, but he also appreciated how the body never lied. If he was ever unsure about how Richie was feeling, he’d just press his fingers gently against Richie’s pulse and feel it quicken as Eddie snuggled into him. He loved being close and staring into someone's eyes, letting their gazes share what the silence couldn't while their hands explored each other. Not to mention the hard thing Eddie could feel now between Richie’s legs…

“Do you want me to do something with that?” Eddie asked shyly, grinding into Richie’s hips. Richie chuckled underneath him, squeezing his arms around Eddie tight. 

“Actually, I’d rather take care of you,” Richie murmured, his breath hot against Eddie’s skin. “I love listening to all the noises you make… feeling your body tremble…”

Right on cue, Eddie shivered at Richie’s touch, but gently stopped his hands where they reached down to Eddie’s thighs. “Would it be weird if we fooled around in the shower? I can be a little louder if the water is running... ”

He could practically hear the grin on Richie’s face when he spoke again. “You read my mind, sweetheart.”

*******

“Hi, Ben.”

Ben looked up from his sketchbook to see Eddie twiddling his thumbs in the doorway of Ben’s bedroom, wearing what looked like an outfit he’d seen people in the Beat scene wear while painting; baggy, old, and dirty. Not something he’d normally catch Eddie in. “What’s up?”

“I was, uh… wondering if you wanted to take a ride with me?” Eddie asked cautiously. “I might need some, uh… muscle to help me out with something. If you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” Ben smiled, snapping his sketchbook shut and placing his pencils down neatly on top of it on the nightstand. “I haven’t gotten a chance to check out your famous driving skills yet.”

“It’s not that special,” Eddie chuckled awkwardly. 

It had been a few days since Ben had insulted Eddie to his face, but Eddie seemed to have forgotten about it; even if it was still eating Ben up inside. Ben followed Eddie out, briefly flashing Beverly and Richie a smile in the living room before heading out the front door. He was a _little_ nervous, having not been used to being driven around in general, let alone with someone who had been locked up in a facility for a few years.

“A lot of cars where you were?” Ben asked, gripping the door handle a little tightly as Eddie pulled the car out into the road. “Most of us weren’t in Maine originally.”

“I was from Queens,” Eddie told him. “They were up and coming. I never owned one, though. Seems like no one can live without one nowadays.”

“You, uh, know where you’re going?”

“Nope. But we’ll get there,” Eddie said cryptically.

“Oh - ok,” Ben muttered, watching as Eddie made precise turns as if he _did_ know where he was going. “Can I, uh… talk to you about something?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“How did you know you were gay?” Ben asked a little more bluntly than he had intended.

Eddie frowned in contemplation as he took another turn. “Honestly, I don’t really think I had an _oh_ moment. I’m sure my parents always suspected, from the way I liked to play with other boys. Ma never approved and tried to control me as much as she could. Couldn’t help it, though. Is that why you hate me so much?”

The question came out so casually, Ben almost didn’t _process_ it for a moment, and when he did, he immediately felt sick, wishing he could take all of his unkind moments back.

“No, Eddie, I don’t hate you,” he said shamefully. “I - I think I hated Richie, at first, but not because of… that. Not entirely.”

“Explain then.” Eddie’s voice was steady, but Ben had seen Eddie have his freak out moments enough times to feel cautious when he answered.

“I was jealous,” he finally said. “Richie is… kind of how I wish I could be.”

“W-what?” Eddie looked over at Ben quickly, needing to keep his yes on the road to drive, but he seemed absolutely bewildered by Ben’s statement.

Ben let out a long, frustrated sigh. “I dunno.”

“You mean being funny? Being with men? Are you gay? Are - ?”

“Are you writing a book?” Ben snapped. “Sorry, I just - no, I’m not - _I don’t know._ I’m not _gay,_ but neither is Richie, is he?”

Eddie opened his mouth then shut it quickly, because _no,_ Richie wasn’t gay, but he wasn’t shy about how he felt about the other guys in the house. Or, anyone, really. When Eddie once asked Richie which he preferred, he simply shrugged and said “I’m always down to go down on anyone.” He was also high as shit, though.

Ben hadn’t noticed that they had pulled into a junkyard until Eddie stopped the car. He looked out the window at the mountains of actual garbage around them and then looked back over at Eddie, who was staring at him curiously.

“What are we doing here, Eddie?”

Eddie kept staring at him for a moment until his face broke out in a wide, bright smile. Not saying another word, he turned off the engine and got out of the car. Ben followed him out, quickly jogging up so he could walk alongside Eddie through the heaps of random objects surrounding them. 

“Uh, Eddie?”

“I used to like building things,” Eddie said suddenly. “I always wanted to make a car or fix one up, but Patrick already did a good job with this one. Now I need another project to work on. Or… several.”

“Oh. I see. What did you have in mind?”

Without further explanation, Eddie didn’t hesitate to fill Ben’s much-larger arms with strange things. A lot of them were old liquor and wine bottles that hadn’t broken completely, and at one point Eddie made Ben bring an old, wooden ladder back to the car. There were various bits of scrap metal and wood, some things small enough for Ben and Eddie to fit in their pockets. It became apparent to Ben that Eddie wasn’t just grabbing things at random, rather pausing to think of an idea before setting off for something new.

“How are you finding all this?” Ben huffed, realizing how quickly they were moving along with this task. It seemed like they were almost done, allowing Eddie to shove a whole door into his arms so they could both carry it back to the car and tie to the roof.

“Compass, Ben,” Eddie chuckled, tapping his forehead, with no further explanation; he quickly reached back down to grab the door so it wouldn’t slip, helping Ben carefully bring it back to strap down.

“Maybe we should hold off on any other projects for the moment,” Ben panted. 

“Yeah, ok,” Eddie sighed, looking just a bit disappointed. He looked over his shoulder, contemplative for a moment, as if seeing something in the far distance.

“Whatever it is will probably still be here later, Daddy-o,” Ben clicked his tongue, patting the hood of the car. “Let’s get back. I can, uh… help you build - whatever this all is - when we get back, if you want.”

“Really?” Eddie asked, turning to look back at Ben over the old door between them on the car. “You know, that means staying in the garage with a lunatic for long periods of time…”

“Oh - Eddie, I - ”

“Relax,” Eddie chuckled, opening the car door. “Just joshin’ ya, Ben.”

“Right,” Ben sighed, laughing back awkwardly. He was still tense, but Eddie only offered him back a small smile before climbing into the car.

“C’mon Ben. Lots of work to do.”

Ben followed him inside, silently hoping Eddie wasn't _actually_ insane.


	8. Make a Little Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do they call themselves? they wonder. Seems like they should have a name, what with how close they're all becoming, don't you think?
> 
> This chapter is so soft I turned into a puddle.
> 
> CW: some outdated use of racial terms (not the n slur but still wanted to note)

“What - what is this?” Stanley stammered as he entered the garage with Mike. He had expected to see the makings of Mike’s garden, but stood open-mouthed in the doorway when he saw an intricate display. 

“I didn’t do this…” Mike murmured. Above the pots of plants he had started to grow were bouquets of glass bottles hanging from the ceiling, varying in colors and creating rainbow lights around the garage. Mike walked closer to inspect them and felt heat radiating off of them; little patio lamps were centered in each of the bottles, creating warm little space underneath them for the garden to stay healthy. They had been placed in the bottles in such a way that they were acting like colorful lamp shades.

Not only that, but right in the corner of the shed was a wooden step ladder, propped up against the cement walls and unfolded against the angle of the adjacent walls. Beneath each space between the steps were painted words.

“Romance… science-fiction… educational... ” Stanley read slowly. “It’s a bookshelf. Someone made a garden themed bookshelf.”

“We were both saying how much we wanted some books in this old place,” Mike mused, looking up at the bottle bouquets with adoration. “Someone must be thinking of us. Now I don’t have to worry about it getting too cold in here, either.”

Stanley sighed, tracing the letters with his index finger and feeling the sanded-down smooth wood. “I have been a bit of a drip lately, haven’t I?”

Mike sauntered over to where Stanley was standing, gently draping an arm over his shoulder. “It’s understandable. No one blames you for shutting down. Also, between you and me, I don’t think anyone really minds who you wanna bill and coo in your free time.”

Stanley tensed up under Mike’s weight. “You - you know about that?”

“I’m probably not supposed to,” Mike muttered. 

“I definitely really upset him,” Stan sighed. “That entire thing was a mistake. Not because of what we did, just… how it ended up. We should’ve talked about it first, but my brain just couldn’t… _process_ what was happening and I just couldn’t stop myself. Now I done goofed it up and probably hurt them both. I’m guessing Eddie told you Richie was there, too.”

“I’m sorry. Don’t blame yourself for that. All of you made a mistake of rushing in, but you realized that and can work on it for the future. Eddie wasn’t telling me because he was mad at you though; he was just letting me know so I didn’t feel cheated.”

“Oh - _oh._ I see.”

“I can… back off. If you want.”

“No,” Stan said after a moment. “I don’t think… _any_ of us really want to do that. Do you?”

For a brief moment, Mike wasn’t sure he understood what Stan meant, but then Stan leaned into his side and rested comfortably against him, pulling Mike’s arm around his shoulder more tightly. _Oh._

“No, I don’t think any of us want to back off,” Mike confirmed softly, smiling as he tilted his head onto Stan’s. “Kind of weird isn’t it?”

“I think we’ll get used to it. Now, who do we have to thank for these kind little brainchild projects?”

Mike chuckled. “I think I have an idea.”

*******

“How’s it looking, Ben?”

“Don’t worry, it’s even,” Ben told them, giving Eddie a thumbs up from where he was leaning against the counter. “Everything’s _ducky._ ”

“ _Why_ do you keep saying that?”

“Oh, so only _you_ get to say the cute little grandpa phrases?” Ben teased.

“Don’t make me come down there young man,” Eddie smirked; if only he had Richie’s niche for voices. “Get your own thing.”

“What about _bees knees?_ ”

“Recycled,” Eddie shook his head. “Try another.”

“But you _like_ recycling,” Ben pointed out, gesturing to the contraption they were putting together - or rather, what Bill and Eddie were putting together - _or rather_ what Eddie was putting together with Bill’s minimal assistance.

“You can make your own thing, like - _fiddlyfuck._ ”

“Fiddly _what?_ ” Ben gasped in laughter, shaking his head.

“Eddie, I know you’re light,” Bill began; his knees were wobbling. “But I have the muscle mass of a lemur.”

“Actually, most lemurs can carry up to ten times their body weight - ”

“I’m gonna drop you, dork,” Bill threatened while Ben started chuckling. “Why isn’t Ben doing this?”

“Because we’re fixing _your_ mistake,” Eddie huffed, kicking his heel into Bill’s ribcage lightly. “Ok. I think this side is good.”

Bill gracelessly folded over to let Eddie slide off of his shoulders, stumbling up to look at their handy work. It was definitely much neater than their makeshift ‘table’ that Bill had sanded down too much. The newly (and properly) sanded and painted door that Eddie and Ben had picked up had been drilled and hung up to make their new hanging table, perfectly even on all sides.

“Can’t ruin any more legs if it doesn’t have any,” Eddie shrugged. “The chains have a good strength; honestly all seven of us could probably sit on the table and it wouldn’t snap any of them.”

“Let’s not get any ideas,” Ben warned. “I think we should make a pact now that we tell Richie it’s unstable enough that he needs to be careful. You know damn well he’d be swinging on this thing. Or - god knows what else.”

“You wanna test that out Ben?” Eddie teased, wiggling his eyebrows. 

“Not where we eat,” Bill deadpanned. “That’s all I beg of any of you.”

“What do we do with this?” Ben asked, showing Eddie the door handle they pulled out before filling in the space with more wood.

“Uh, someone could use it as a coat hanger if they want,” Eddie suggested. “Oh! Or we can use it for the curtain, since we don’t have anything to tie it up with when we want some sunlight in here.”

“Perfect,” Ben beamed.

“I suppose this is much better,” Bill mused, tracing his hand along the side of the door-table after Ben went upstairs. “What made you think to do it?”

“Uh,” Eddie drawled, looking a little uncomfortable. “They had these - these tables like this at - at the - the place. They’d crane them down from the ceiling when they had to… operate on people. Then they’d crane them back up so the auditorium could be used for other kinds of lectures.”

“Oh, that’s - terrible,” Bill finally said, not capable of thinking of what else to say. “I’m starting to forget about stuff from before coming here. How do you still remember so much?”

“It’s literally burned into my brain,” Eddie reminded him. Bill just kept looking at him sadly before rubbing Eddie’s arm affectionately. Quick to change the subject, “So, you sure you don’t want to test the tensile strength on this bad boy?”

“W-w-what?” Bill stammered, hand freezing on Eddie’s arm. “Now? With you?”

“What, _no!_ ” Eddie chuckled awkwardly. _Unless…? No, Eddie, relax._ “I was just teasing. Unless, you and Beverly… I don’t know.”

“Me and Beverly?”

“Oh. Do you not…? Do you not like Beverly?”

“I don’t know?”

“You don’t know?”

Bill shrugged, finally letting go of Eddie’s arm and starting to circle around the table. “I feel like I don’t like people right. Like I think I loved my wife from what I could remember. But I never had any interest in… doing that stuff, you know?”

“Doing…? What, like sex? I mean, I never did either, with my wife.”

“I don’t think it had anything to do with her or… being gay or anything,” Bill muttered, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “It’s not _bad,_ it’s not unenjoyable I guess. I just never have a hankering to do it.”

“I don’t… think there’s anything wrong with that,” Eddie reasoned. There definitely couldn’t be just _one_ way to love someone. Eddie was pretty sure that he himself even felt strongly for Beverly, even if he’d never imagine doing things with her that he’d want to do with any of the guys here. “Cuddling is always a nice alternative.”

Bill actually chuckled at that, smiling up at Eddie. “Yeah, it definitely is.”

“Oooooh, is that a sex swing?”

Eddie was already rolling his eyes before he turned to see Richie and Bev walking in through the back door, the stale smell of cigarettes radiating off of them with the cold air they brought in.

“Don’t even think about it, Richie,” Bill huffed. “It’s _clearly_ a fucking table.”

“You can definitely have sex on it, though,” Beverly agreed, Richie nodding along beside her.

“No, this is for food only,” Bill said only. “I don’t know what the rest of you are up to in the house, but this - ” he gestured to the dining and kitchen area. “ - is for food and quality time only. Sex Free Zone.”

“Question,” Richie piped up. “If I wanted to throw an orgy in the living room - ”

“Absolutely not. Downstairs is official off limits for sex stuff.”

As much as Eddie wanted to amuse himself with this conversation, another sense told him to turn around and look over at Mike in the hallway, beckoning Eddie over. He could already feel his cheeks blushing as he walked over, letting Mike drape a large arm over his slender shoulders and lead Eddie towards the garage silently.

“Hi, Eddie,” Stan said with a soft smile once Eddie stepped down onto the concrete floor. It was the first thing Stan said directly to Eddie since - well, _since._

“We couldn’t help but notice the new decorations,” Mike chuckled, rubbing his calloused hand up and down Eddie’s arm. “We just wanted to thank the artist.”

“Ok, well it’s not really art,” Eddie said, feeling himself blush deeper and smile nervously. “I just - you know, hooked the bulbs with the wires through the bottles, you know - ”

“It was very sweet, Eddie,” Mike assured him, planting a small kiss atop Eddie’s head that sent a slow, warm wave down his spine. “You put a lot of thought into this and a lot of work.”

“It was nothing,” Eddie muttered bashfully. 

“I’ll let Stan, uh, thank you for the book shelf, too,” Mike murmured, his breath on Eddie’s temple hot as he left another kiss on Eddie’s skin. “I’ll go see what the others are up to.”

All that was left of him then was the ghost of his presence, lingering there still on Eddie’s shoulders and the places he had kissed. Eddie tried to let it wash away as Stan shyly sauntered over to him, wordlessly slipping his long arms around Eddie’s waist. Eddie could feel Stan’s bank arch as he bent down to hug him, his chin pressing down into Eddie’s neck snugly. Any fear Eddie may have had touching Stan again dissipated, not hesitating to squeeze Stan back tightly, automatically pushing himself up on his tippy toes.

“I’m sorry,” Stan whispered against Eddie’s neck. “I feel like I took advantage of you.”

“You didn’t,” Eddie assured him, attempting to pull Stan in tighter. “I promise I wanted to do it. We were just a bit of a mess about it, that’s all. Richie’s sorry too, but neither of you should be.”

“We can do better next time. With or without Richie; with or without anyone else; whatever you want.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Eddie felt his lips curl up until his cheeks practically burned from how wide his smile became, closing his eyes contentedly. “I’d like that.”

*******

The winter holidays were approaching more rapidly than any of them expected; Eddie had left his time closest to December, but he couldn’t even remember what _year_ it was, let alone the month.

“All I knew was that it was cold,” he had said. “It’s always cold in there, but I could start to see my breath.”

Now that they were getting used to each other in a way none of them could understand, they wanted to make the holidays special. The garden miraculously grew faster than realistically possible, thrilling Mike to no end.

“It’s magic,” Bill shrugged as they inspected the fully grown plants just days after planting them. “Same thing that brought us here together.”

"Some of this magic needs to chill," Beverly said. "I don't want another bomb like that again and waking up in the next new millennium."

“Alright, alright, alright, man,” Richie chortled happily when he saw his cannabis budding early. “Now that’s what I’m talking about. We can smoke us up some extra holiday cheer.” 

“Hey,” Stan whispered to Eddie, taking him by the hand and bringing him to one of the pots in the corner. “You wanna bring this out into the common room?”

Eddie gaped down at a beautiful, fully blossomed poinsettia. “You got one for me?”

“Your favorite, right?” Stan asked him quietly. “I wanted you to have one for Christmas.”

Eddie looked up at him with happy tears in his eyes, squeezing Stan tightly around the middle. He couldn’t bear to say it out loud, how much it meant to have something like this, a thoughtful gift of something he had lost out on in years, but he could tell Stan felt it.

Bill and Richie would plan feasts for Mike and Stan to make (their indulgence in Richie’s pot inspiring some creative ideas); Beverly and Eddie helped make a menorah out of older candle holders that they had fixed up together in what Eddie thought was a rather monstrous display.

“This is the worst,” Eddie pouted. “My poinsettia is beautiful, and I give you… _this."_

“No, it’s quite beautiful,” Stan sighed sentimentally as he lit the first candle on the mantle above the fireplace. “A bunch of different pieces brought together as one. Oddly poetic, given the circumstances.”

Mike and Ben had gone out to get a tree from the woods beyond their home. They took longer than expected, cheeks and noses blistering with cold and a strange bashfulness to them. Richie had no qualms pointing out Mike’s untucked shirt and Ben’s half-done fly.

This was the first verbal acknowledgement of this happening, despite all of them beginning to notice the others sneaking off someplace every now and then. Without explanation, they began gravitating towards each other, beginning to indulge in each other one at a time.

“Why so glum, sugarplum?” Richie asked Eddie as they strung up some popcorn on their tree together.

“It’s nothing,” Eddie sighed, tucking his feet under his legs as he plopped down beneath the branches. 

“Sweetheart, it’s not nothing. It’s ok if you don’t want to talk about it, but at least just tell me that.”

“Mike told me he wanted to take things slow,” Eddie mumbled. “But Ben isn’t even the first person I’ve seen him… go off with.” He looked up to see Richie staring at him meaningfully. “What?”

“Talk to him.”

“What if he doesn’t want to?”

“Then he doesn’t want to,” Richie said simply. “But you can’t know unless you ask.”

“Easy for you to say. You never stop talking.”

“There’s quite a few ways to shut me up, especially if my mouth is full,” Richie winked.

“Tree looks nice,” said Bill as he came around from the kitchen.

Eddie looked up to see Bill snake his arms around Richie’s waist from behind, lifting a joint for Richie to take and put up to his lips. Bill had not practiced the same kind of intimacy that seemed to be going around, but he was growing more openly physical. Just watching it made Eddie’s skin tingle and want to reach out to someone -

Richie had been right, for sure; he definitely craved being held and touched by someone. Right now, he knew exactly who he wanted that from.

“Bill, have you seen Mike?” Eddie asked casually.

“Upstairs,” Bill said. “He and Ben got sap all over them from the tree.”

“Is that what they’re calling it,” Richie muttered before Bill poked him in the ribs.

“I’ll, uh, go check up on them,” Eddie mumbled, getting up from his spot on the floor to head upstairs.

Richie eyed Eddie’s figure disappearing into the dark before handing his joint back over to Bill. He pulled his arm back so he could sling it around Bill’s shoulder.

“This is nice,” he murmured with a smirk, rubbing Bill’s shoulder affectionately.

“Don’t expect much more than this,” Bill informed him.

“Wasn’t gonna,” Richie assured him, nuzzling his face into the top of Bill’s head. “Why do you smell like strawberries?”

“My shampoo,” Beverly said after appearing suddenly, tackling Richie's other side and wrapping around both of them. “The tree looks amazing!”

“Just lights and strings right now,” Richie chuckled, curling his other arm around her waist. He couldn’t help but feel like he missed this, being sandwiched between two people. 

“I’m sure Eddie will be delighted to put his ornaments up,” Beverly told them. “He’s been making a bunch with me upstairs. We should all make some! It’ll be a hodgepodge of all of our art work.”

“I don’t do art,” Bill said. “I write, and it’s all depressing.”

“Writing is art, my man,” Richie said. “Surely you got some joy up in the noggin to decorate our lovely tree in gay apparel.”

“When you say _gay_ apparel - ?”

“I mean whatever the fuck you think it means,” Richie laughed, kissing Bill on the forehead. “Let’s pull some holiday cheer outta ya and see what we can put on this bad boy.”

Bill looked across Richie’s chest over to where Beverly was tucked under Richie’s under arm, both of them smirking at each other as she shook her head.

“C’mon,” Bev said, pushing them both along. “Let’s go through Eddie’s pile of junk and see what we come up with.”

“You know, I was thinking,” Bill began.

“Not off to a good start so far,” Richie teased.

“Well, we should call ourselves something,” Bill continued, ignoring Richie as Beverly rolled her eyes beside him going up the stairs. “Like, a group name. It’s starting to sound creepy referring to ourselves as _the others_ when we’re not all together.”

“Time Traveling Orgy Gang,” Richie suggested.

“Strong no.”

“Buncha Time Traveling Freaks,” Beverly added.

Bill sighed. “Something a little more simple than that. I mean, besides being from a different time, we all lost something didn’t we? All the past parts of ourselves. Not to mention we were all kind of outcasts where we came from - ”

“So we’re a club of losers,” Richie laughed. “Endearing.”

“No, that _is_ endearing,” Beverly beamed. “We’re all losers, together.”

“Losers Club,” Bill agreed, smiling broadly at both of them.

“Losers who stick together,” Richie nodded. “All right. I dig it.”

*******

“Hi, Mike,” Eddie said, standing awkwardly in the doorway. Mike was alone, reading in the bed. “Where’s Ben?”

“With Stan.”

“Where’s Stan?”

“In the bath.”

Eddie blinked rapidly, trying to process that. _So much_ was happening now and he was starting to feel like he had been left out of the loop. No one had really explicitly talked about it, certainly not amongst each other, and definitely not with him.

“That’s, uh… new, isn’t it?”

“No idea,” Mike smiled softly. “You wanna sit on the bed with me?”

Eddie moved so quickly that he shouldered the doorframe, surely hard enough to leave a bruise there for later, but he paid it no mind. His insides were all nerves now and he didn’t even bother jumping over Mike to sit beside him; instead, he just slid onto his lap where he laid with his legs outstretched on the bed.

“What are you reading?” he asked, curling up into Mike’s chest which vibrated slightly as Mike chuckled, nuzzling his face into Mike’s neck and looking down at the page Mike had open.

“Three Musketeers,” Mike told him, wrapping his arm around Eddie to hold him close. “I never knew, but Bill informed me that he was actually a colored Frenchman. Pretty unbelievable. I never got to grow up hearing a lot of positives about colored people in general.”

“Beverly didn’t like you using that word,” Eddie pointed out. “Although, I guess that’s up to you,” he added guiltily. “You should get a say in that. I just remember saying it and she got uncomfortable.”

“Terms have changed quite a bit,” Mike nodded. “I used the term in the library and made the librarian choke. I was looking for books, and she pointed me out to the Black and African-American Culture section. It's amazing that we have our own sections to celebrate our history now, not tucked away. But, you didn’t come in here to talk about books, did you?”

Eddie grunted wordlessly, playing with one of the buttons on Mike’s shirt. “I, uh… I’m a bit of a baby. I’m trying not to be jealous, but I…” he trailed off, not really knowing what to say; how to address it. Because he _wasn’t_ jealous, he doesn’t think. He just _wants_ and grows impatient, which isn’t fair to anyone else.

Mike put his book down on the nightstand, lifting Eddie’s chin up to meet his eyes. “Growing restless waiting for me?”

“A little bit,” Eddie admitted softly. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Mike told him, tilting Eddie’s chin up more to kiss him softly. At least, it started out softly in the beginning before Eddie became more fervent, crawling over so he could straddle Mike on the bed and press their chests together. To his pleasant surprise, Mike kissed him hungrily in return, his large hands running up under Eddie’s shirt and along the skin of his back and waist.

“We oughta be careful, sugar,” Mike drawled, tracing his thumb along Eddie’s cheek. “Ben and Stan will be back in here in a moment.”

Eddie just couldn’t help the smile that spread on his face as he whispered against Mike’s lips, _“Good.”_

*******

Beverly, Bill, and Richie had added to Eddie’s collection of homemade ornaments, hanging them up before the other four came down to begin dinner. Of course, all of them questioned the giant banner that said _Welcome to the Losers Club!_ above the bay window where their tree stood center of.

“Official band name,” Richie joked. “We’ll be bigger than the Grateful Dead.”

“Most bands are already bigger than the Grateful Dead,” Beverly teased him, laughing as he frowned down at her.

“You guys enjoy yourselves upstairs?” Bill asked casually, silently noting the simultaneous blush across all of their cheeks.

“What are you - ?” Ben began.

“We could hear it, Ben,” Richie interrupted. “I gotta say, very disappointed I didn’t get an invite.”

“I’m not,” Bill said. 

“Aw, but Bill, you can give us smooches between rounds,” Richie cooed, now making _Bill_ blush as bad as the other four.

“I - wh - ok.”

“Are you gonna be too tuckered out to make dinner?” Beverly ragged.

“No - ” Mike started roughly before clearing his throat. “Sorry, nope. I’m good. Ready to uh, rock’n roll?” he asked, looking over at Ben for validation.

“Rock’n roll,” Ben nodded.

“Psst,” Richie called at Eddie and Stan from the armchair as the others fussed over dinner. 

Eddie grinned dopily over at Richie, cheeks still flushed and hair a wreck. He practically collapsed in Richie’s lap, Stan following beside him and somehow squeezing into the small space there.

Yeah, Richie really loved being sandwiched.

“You and Mike have a good talk, Eds?” Richie chortled, wrapping his arms around both of them; Stan had rested his head on his shoulder and Eddie had tucked between both of their chests with his legs curled up.

“Mmm,” Eddie hummed pleasantly. “Very good talk.”

“Very good talk,” Stan repeated sleepily. He opened his eyes and smiled down at Eddie while breathing in his and Richie’s scent. He turned his head slightly to see Ben slinging his arm around Bill’s shoulder, Beverly wrapped around Mike while she helped him prep food for dinner.

And it wasn’t weird. Perhaps it was weird how much it _wasn’t_ weird, but Stan was starting to feel so comfortable here, so happy. He had made a mistake trying to figure it out, but things would get better - he knew it.

The new table was perfect, having no legs beneath it and making it much easier for each of the _Losers_ to scooch in close to each other and have their enthusiastic conversations. All of them cleaned up and lit up the tree in the dark. It was such a simple joy, between the tree and the comforting menorah Stan got to see, that none of them wanted to leave the sight of it quite yet. So Richie and Ben gathered all their blankets and pillows from the bedroom, spreading them out on the floor by the tree, pushing all the chairs aside so some of them could sleep under the hanging table. 

After finally getting Richie to stop talking by passing around one of his joints, they all snuggled sleepily together in their pillow pile, who-knows legs tangled in who-knows legs, heads tucked in shoulders and resting on chests, hands holding each other tight. It was Bill that fell asleep last, listening to the calm breathing and light snoring around him as his eyes fluttered close softly.

No one was awake enough to hear him whisper into the darkness, “Maturin found a way back home.”


	9. Whatever This Means

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for your patience with this fic. Life is happening and I'm trying to find a balance in writing different projects; also hoping to find the right balance in plot and just delicious Loser sex pits ykwim.
> 
> Please do not hesitate to let me know what you think (my kind way of saying I'm an attention whore<3), your comments and kind words have fueled me.
> 
> Get ready for a spiral of emotions <3 
> 
> content spoilers: first half of this chapter is smut heavy.

Stan couldn’t remember being this eager to be touched before in his life. To be fair, he’s starting to forget a lot about what life was like outside of his house; he still finds technology to be _astounding,_ the accessibility of information absolutely incredible. Bill had gotten them all planners, and Stan had intended to schedule some days at some museums or even the library. Despite penciling some time in, Stan really can’t help but spend a lot of his time with his limbs intertwined with someone else’s.

Yeah, he can’t remember being this ravenous; he mostly remembers being quite chaste and proper; but he can’t remember why, and he doesn’t really want to.

Mike is kissing down Stan’s chest while he makes out with Eddie, who’s curled up on the bed beside him. He has no idea where everyone else in the house is. They could walk in. They could stay where they are. It doesn’t matter. Stan wouldn’t mind either way. He’s just happy to exist in the same house as them now. 

He is also more than happy to let Mike shimmy his pants off. 

“What do you want me to do?” Eddie whispered, tilting his head to kiss Stanley’s jaw. He’s laying prone with his feet dangling off the bed where Mike is now kneeling between his legs and tracing his large hands up Stan’s thighs. With all of _that_ going on down there _,_ it takes him a minute to process that Eddie is even talking, let alone answer.

“I think Mike has got a handle on things,” Stanley said, ending his sentence with a gasp as he felt Mike’s mouth on him. 

Eddie chuckled, taking a peek before focusing back on Stan again. Stanley does think -- or, tries to think, because it is hard to do when someone is sucking your dick -- and can’t come up with anything, because he wasn’t used to things like this. Neither he nor -- whoever he had been with before -- had likely done anything crazy. There might have been the occasional time Stan thought about oral, but it hadn’t been in his regular vocabulary. But he does look down at what Mike is doing and it gives him an idea.

“Eddie, sit on my chest.”

Without any hesitation, Eddie straddled Stan, blocking his view from Mike, but giving Stan a _splendid_ view of what was going on in Eddie’s briefs. Mike can’t see Stan’s face anymore, but he doesn’t think Mike would complain about looking up to see Eddie’s ass. So he helped Eddie shimmy out of his short briefs just enough and pulled Eddie closer by his thighs so he could emulate what Mike was doing to _him,_ and Eddie gripped into Stan’s curls for dear life.

*******

“Are you sure you don’t want me to do anything?” Beverly sighed. It was a difficult battle in her mind, deciding if she wanted to lay there and let two men ravish her or actually get up to assist. It had been a long day and right now she was getting _pampered._ Ben was eager and rubbing against her body and Richie sure knew what the hell he was doing, so Beverly had _no_ complaints about just laying here.

Ben mumbled what sounded like a faint decline against her neck while he cupped one of her breasts. Richie -- mouth preoccupied -- simply hummed his answer and shook his head and it made Bev _squirm._ She was laying against the headboard and accidentally slammed her head back against the wood as she let out a gasp.

Eventually Beverly found herself in Ben’s lap while Richie kissed across her bare shoulders behind her. As she kissed Ben and felt Richie against her back, there seemed to be a perfect balance between everyone taking their turn and being impatient to touch each other. She would take a break and lean forward while the two of them kissed each other over her shoulder, gently biting Ben’s neck.

Beverly doesn’t remember why, but her flesh is stained with memories of bruises she regrets and part of her wants to know why those feelings of reluctance to be touched existed, who had instilled the fear in her to begin with. As those evocations begin to fade, though, and her trust in these once-strangers builds more firmly on their strange foundation, and she loses herself to bliss. She arched her back and threw her head back on Richie’s shoulder with a smile on her face, wondering what the hell there was to be afraid of in the first place.

*******

Richie wasn’t sure what he was going to do after going down to the kitchen and chugging a class or water. Beverly and Ben had decided to take a walk around and smoke out back and get some fresh air. Bill had been out there doing -- something. Since Richie had a bad habit of saying the wrong things at the wrong time, he figured he would leave it up to them to see how he was doing. Not sure what the others were up to, Richie dragged himself up the stairs again to find Eddie in the hallway looking rather sheepish.

“What’s the matter, love?” Richie asked.

Eddie was leaning against the wall in just his briefs and a button-up, biting his bottom lip. “Stan and Mike, uh… I don’t know, I just felt like I was in the way.”

_“In the way?”_ Richie intoned incredulously.

Eddie shrugged. “I already -- you know -- finished, so I didn’t want to hang around and bother them.”

“Did they kick you out?”

“No…”

“Then that’s nonsense.” Richie leaned down and pecked Eddie’s neck in a particularly ticklish spot, making him squirm and wiping the frown right off his face. “I’m sure they wouldn’t mind the extra company,” he prodded, gently nudging Eddie back towards the bedroom. “Plus, just because you came once, doesn’t mean you’re _done,_ you know.”

“It doesn’t?”

Richie just smirked and gently rapped on the door. A breathy _come in_ was heard by -- someone, they couldn’t tell who, but it was an invitation enough for Richie to pull the handle and gently encourage Eddie inside. 

Mike was a pretty large person and even made Stan look petite where he was lying on top of him on the bed. There was something about seeing Mike’s giant frame beside either Stan or Eddie that made Richie’s chest flutter with excitement. Stan gestured for them to come over, so Richie quietly asked Eddie if he wanted to lay down just like Stan was, right beside him beneath Mike and Richie, and Eddie nodded shyly. 

Stan was already flushed in the cheeks and sweating while Mike moved his hips into him with a steady rhythm. Richie had seen enough of everyone to know that he and Mike were the largest, so it was understandable that Eddie was nervous while he watched the scene beside him, even as Stan took his hand and leaned over to kiss up Eddie’s neck.

“You haven’t been with Mike like that yet?” Richie asked softly while he gently prepped Eddie while kissing up his neck and hoped his own body would catch up again after coming down just less than a half hour ago in the other room.

“Uh uh,” Eddie shook his head, his voice coming out breathy while Richie had his hands on him. “Just -- just other stuff. I was with -- Ben and Stan.”

“Well, I won’t hurt you, ok?” Richie assured him, wanting to make sure he felt safe and secure, even if he was nervous about his first time doing this with Richie. Hopefully, this would make Eddie less nervous about eventually being with Mike, too, if he wanted that. “None of us will.”

When he had helped Stan and Eddie do this not long ago, it ended up a bit of a disaster. But now the two of them were moving so freely, kissing each other all the while Mike was running his hands all over Stan, even sneaking a hand over to give Eddie or Richie a couple of strokes whenever Richie was preoccupied doing something else. It was so much more carefree and honest. Watching them like this now was just wonderful and none of them were afraid to speak up or make eye contact; the latter being one of Richie’s favorite things, to be honest, especially staring down at them like this.

Eddie let out a little whimper once Richie entered him, not taking his eyes off of Eddie while he did so. His chest swelled watching Eddie’s eyes widen, but he was quickly starting to relax and move his hips with Richie and even continue focusing on Stan, too. When Stan finished he moaned right into Eddie’s mouth and then threw his head back onto the pillow in content. Richie thought Mike was going to finish with Stan, but instead he crawled over and started kissing Richie across the shoulders and Richie just couldn’t help but beg for Mike to sandwich him between Eddie.

All of their movements were in sync; Mike into Richie, Richie into Eddie, all while Stan leaned over to keep kissing Eddie and stroking him to finish. And Richie wasn’t sure why anymore, but he missed the feeling of someone being inside him while he was in rhythm with someone else. It was familiar and warm, and Mike was an amalgam of passion and tenderness against him.

By the time they were done, Richie was particularly spent, plopping down in the center of the bed knowing full well he wouldn’t have proper use of his muscles for days. Stanley and Eddie both scooted in from either side of him to curl their arms and legs around him while Mike took the empty space behind Stanley and spooned him.

This was definitely working.

*******

Shortly after Richie had disappeared back upstairs, Beverly and Ben went out into the backyard to enter a daunting discussion; Bill couldn’t stop thinking about the damn Turtle. 

At first, when Bill had spoken to him -- _Him_ \-- there hadn’t been a way to talk to Him unless Bill altered his own state of mind. Now it was getting easier and easier to just hear Maturin like a voice in the back of Bill’s head. It started off as faint whispers and was beginning to become casual conversations that Bill would get lost in. The others had addressed his strange behavior when he would sometimes forget where he was and act outside of his mind, but Bill wasn’t quite sure how to tackle this predicament. 

In a moment that felt like ages ago, Bill had told Eddie that they wouldn’t -- and couldn’t -- go back to their times. That was what Bill assumed to be the truth, and it probably _was_ at the time. 

A long, long time ago, Maturin had vomited out the universe as the world knew it to be. As outrageous and disgusting as that was, Bill accepted the great truth immediately, feeling it settle heavily in his soul. After the creature known as It escaped the void and started feeding off of human souls, Maturin was forced to come out of the shell He preferred to spend His centuries sleeping in. With the assistance of the almighty Gan to give strength, Maturin was able to reach out and save the poor souls.

It had apparently taken a lot of convincing on Maturin’s part for Gan to extend any effort in saving what He had considered to be insignificant beings in the grand universe. Once it was made clear that just a single one of these earth creatures could feed It and fuel his strength tenfold, Gan had finally granted His powers to aid in keeping as many of them alive as possible. 

The first few times, Maturin was too late, and He was almost ready to give up as His own strength was giving in and It’s grew more with each soul it consumed. That was, until they finally found a soul protected by an extraordinary force of Shine. Both It and Maturin had sniffed the soul out; Maturin sensed the power; It sensed the fear. The soul had been suffering greatly, but Maturin was able to scoop him up and carry the man along the strings of time until He could find somewhere safe to place him away from It. Maturin knew that if It consumed a soul with the Shine, It’s powers would be that much more immense; once It realized this, the creature continued to sniff out more just like this.

This went on for decades, but the years passed by in blinks for Maturin, until He finally found a moment in which It no longer existed, perhaps destroyed by other guardians or Gan Himself. Or maybe, It just choked to death on a galaxy; it had been known to happen. When that time of It’s nonexistence came, Maturin spit them all out in a small fracture of reality that only they could perceive, due to the Shine that was present within each one of them. Bits of their own life experiences reflected back into the reality around them and thus created the house they shared together, fractions of familiarity fitted together to make a home they were all comfortable in.

Perhaps the plan was to just leave them here all along, but now with It gone and Maturin exhaustingly scanning the universe for anything left of It’s presence, there seemed to be a loophole.

“So you’re telling me,” Beverly said slowly. “That the giant Turtle you’ve been talking to… swallowed a black hole?”

“I guess so,” Bill (barely) clarified. “He thinks if He swallows us up again He can actually vomit us up _back_ in time -- back to our own times where we probably belong. Since It can’t travel anymore, we’d be safe from It finding us again.”

“Were those the words He used?” Beverly grimaced. “I don’t remember being vomited.”

They sat beside each other out on the porch while Ben shuffled his feet in the grass and he smoked a cigarette. While lost in their confusion and mild disgust, Ben thought to bring up a point.

“Do you guys even remember what you left behind?” Ben asked, tossing his cigarette down and grinding it down with his boot.

Bill frowned and tried to stretch his brain that far back. All he felt was pain and loneliness and the beginnings of a madman erupting in his soul. That wasn’t something he very much looked forward to. When he looked over at Bev, she seemed to be just as wary as he felt, the ghost of long lost anguish shadowed on her face.

“I wouldn’t want to go back,” Bill said after a moment. “Would any of us want to?”

But Ben was experiencing a different kind of heartache; a deep longing in his chest for someone he wasn’t sure existed, someone that was sure long forgotten. His fingers itched to touch this person, but he wasn’t even sure why. He looked up at Bill and when their eyes met, he tried to convey this the best he could with his gaze and Bill’s eyes widened in return.

Because in Ben’s eyes he not only _saw_ that aching, but in turn Bill felt a deep-seated resentment of some sort, a terrible grief he had buried somewhere within himself. Bill could not even remember who he had mourned, but the guilt of it cut through him like a knife to his chest. 

_Who was he missing so badly?_

And was it worth it to go back if they were dead?

“Should we tell the others?” Beverly asked.

“What kind of a question is that?” Ben replied. “We can’t hide something like that. We shouldn’t hide anything from each other.”

“But what if -- ” Beverly paused, choking on her words as her eyes began to fill with tears. She turned to look away from either of them, as if saying what she wanted to say was going to hurt her too much.

“What if any of them want to go back?” Bill finished for her.

“They wouldn’t want to,” Beverly said firmly. “It’s a stupid thing to suggest. We all want to stay here. Right?”

When she was met with silence, Beverly finally looked up at Ben, who was staring down at his feet in despair, then at Bill, who looked like he was suddenly hit with an emotional bomb. 

“You remember how Stan was when we first got here,” Bill reminded her gently. “Richie, too; he may have masked his grief in jokes and distractions, but neither of them wanted to be here. They wanted to go home…”

“But we’re happy here!” Beverly protested. “You want to go tell Eddie he has to go back to that place he came from? Or Mike? I damn sure know you didn’t want to go back, Bill.”

“Maybe,” he said quietly. His voice was soft, but she looked at him as if he had slapped her.

Before she could retort, Ben gently piped in, “Do we have to go alone?”

“What -- what do you mean?” Bill asked.

“Well, if -- if we have the option of going back, are we stuck going back to only our own times?” Ben asked. “Or could we -- you know -- ”

“Go with someone else?”

“Well, think about it,” Ben continued, looking almost regretful and guilty for bringing this up. “Should all of us really stay if we’re repressing parts of ourselves that we’re missing? What if we were happier?”

_“Happier?”_ Beverly repeated heatedly. “Does everything we went through and built together mean nothing?”

“Bev,” Ben pleaded, coming over and kneeling down in front of her on his knees. “I’m just saying -- we had _lives_ before all of this. There was no choice made by any of us to wake up here -- we were all just ripped away from everything we had.”

“We _died,_ Ben,” Beverly reminded him in a strained voice. “Or are you forgetting? We all died somehow. We don’t _have_ lives to go back to anymore!”

“Unless Maturin could put us back,” Bill said beside her. “Fit pieces together to make it work.”

“Are you on his side now?” 

“Beverly, I’m not taking sides,” Bill sighed. “But I -- ” He took a deep breath. “I care about all of you. Hell, I am pretty damn sure I _love_ all of you, but love isn’t confining each other to stay together. The others all deserve a say and choice.”

With those words, Beverly finally felt her tears escape her, rolling warm down her wind-blistered cheeks in the cold breeze outside. Something inside of her told her she was being selfish, even if just momentarily; mostly, her anger was fueled by the fear of losing what she had now. Even deeper within, she knew she had once been trapped before -- either long ago, or just a few months ago depending on how you looked at it -- and the feeling was anything but jovial; it was a nightmare.

She couldn’t do to the ones she loved -- yes, she realized deep down what these feelings were all along -- what had been done to her and _hurt_ her.

Beverly turned to look inside, staring through the glass into the empty kitchen, beyond the counters and looking at the silly lights and decorations they had put together for the holidays. They had been thrust here so abruptly and somehow managed to make a beautiful life for themselves together in such a short time, sharing their affections openly. Ending all of that -- even if just _one_ of them left -- was going to feel like getting a part of her soul ripped out.

But love was worth it, for every person she felt for in this house. As much as it would hurt, Beverly knew Bill and Ben were right. Each one of their group had to decide what was going to make them happiest; whatever that meant for the rest of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> o no what do


	10. In the Hole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome back!!!!
> 
> I had some stuff to work out with this fic for upcoming chapters and the shit-show begins now my friends :)  
> before yee continue, always remember: when there is darkness, happiness can be found when one remembers to turn on the light. the light is coming!
> 
> Also! I made cute little Sims of all the time travel Losers if you wanna check them out on my tumblr! @fuckbitchesgetreddie
> 
> Enjoy<3

*******

All of the self-proclaimed _Losers_ had thought of themselves as pacifists. In fact, as angry or frustrated as they had been with each other in the beginning, when they were figuring each other out, none of them had thought to _hurt_ one another. The only way it would’ve come to that is if someone had started it -- and someone else would have felt the need to go on the defensive. But that had never happened. Especially not as time passed, not when they made each other feel safe in the strange place they had been brought to.

In the settling aftermath of the first storm that had swept them here, something deep down had kept them from _wanting_ to remember where they came from. Besides vague pictures in their heads, those lives didn't _want_ to matter now. Or so it seemed, until Bill took it upon himself to tell the rest of the group what he had seen.

It began with Eddie and started rolling through the rest of them in a domino effect. Once the words left Bill’s mouth, Eddie startled the others by abruptly standing to his feet at the table, his chair thrown back behind him.

“Bill, you _promised_ we wouldn’t go back!” he cried, staring at Bill across the table angrily. “Tell the damn turtle _no!_ We all want to stay! Right? Guys…?”

Eddie felt his anger towards Bill quickly erupt into a plethora of heart-shattering emotions when he turned to look at the others. To his right, he saw Richie, Stan, and Mike all pensive, as if the idea of going back should even be _considered._ In that moment, Eddie was met with the nasty reminder that he was one of the few of them who didn’t have anyone to possibly go back to. The only other exception was —

“We’re not going back,” Beverly said firmly. “I won’t. I told you they wouldn’t take this well.”

“No one is making anyone else go,” Ben reminded her gently. “But if any of them wanted to—”

“They don’t want to go back!” Beverly shouted. “You heard Eddie!”

Despite her stubbornness, Eddie knew all too well already that she was wrong. Richie sat uncharacteristically silent with his hands folded in front of him. Stanley and Mike both looked away distantly, their faces full of a longing Eddie could not even comprehend. Because anyone who he had longed for that badly now only existed under this roof.

As Bill spoke to them about his visions, Eddie should have understood. All of their old fond memories were coming back to them — maybe not clearly enough to really _remember,_ but enough to make them now torn between a life then and now.

“You shouldn’t have even brought this up,” Beverly continued.

“We don’t know how much time the Turtle would’ve given us,” Ben said. “I mean, He can’t possibly just be willing to hang around a bunch of losers waiting for us to make a decision like this. For us, it may be a big deal, but for some… giant, ancient creature of space…”

“Gan might be angry Maturin is wasting his time on us,” Bill said.

“Who the _fuck_ is this Gan?” Beverly huffed.

“If you all go,” Eddie said quietly, looking up at Bill. “Will Beverly and I have to go, too?”

 _“What?”_ Beverly asked, snapping her head back to face Eddie. Upon doing so, she saw the looks in the others faces down the table and her own face dropped, anger replaced by heartbreak.

“No,” Bill told them. “Whoever wants to stay can stay…”

“I’d rather be here alone than go back,” Eddie said, his voice breaking in his attempt to speak firmly. “I don’t -- I wouldn’t want to make anyone do anything they don’t want to. I’d — rather you guys be ha-happy.”

Richie’s head finally looked up at Eddie, his face both deeply hurt and conflicted. “Eds, I’m happy. I _am_ happy, I just…”

“Miss another happy,” Stan murmured beside Richie. His finger was tracing the bare skin of his ring finger. _He had been married before, hadn’t he?_ Eddie thought ruefully. _A happy marriage, surely. Not like mine._

“My heart is breaking at the thought of it,” Mike said quietly. “But I don’t know if it’s broken because it hurt to be there… or if it’s hurting to be away.”

The memories were all still there under the surface. Where Eddie felt only pain, the others beside him had _fond_ memories, things that threatened the happiness they shared here. He wanted what was best for everyone else — even if it meant losing them all. Without saying another word, he brushed past Beverly and went off into his favorite bedroom on the second floor.

The rest of them let him go. No one was sure if it was best to give him space or chase after him. Beverly, however, looked at the rest of them in shock.

“Really?” Bev asked the table sternly. “None of you have anything to say to him?”

“I talk too much already,” Richie mumbled. “I’ll just say something stupid.”

“That’s never stopped you before,” Bev huffed.

“Hey!” he snapped. “What’s your bag, Bev? You’re acting like we did this on purpose!”

“You all want to leave,” she said, gesturing to the others as well. “It’s bullshit.”

“It’s not _bullshit!_ We had lives, Beverly! Just because you couldn’t stand yours, doesn’t mean you have to make that choice for the rest of us.”

“Oh shit; there you go saying something fucking _stupid,_ again.”

“Guys!” Bill shouted, quickly running over to stand between them. Neither of them had even noticed they stood up, hands balled into fists at their sides in anger, until Bill approached. “We are making this far worse!”

 _“I’m_ making this worse?” Richie sneered. “You’re the one whose been talking to the fucking Turtle this whole time without telling us! Why the fuck did you have to say _anything?”_

“Hey, piss off Rich,” Bill bit back, pushing Richie back slightly.

“Touch me like that again, Bill.”

“I will if you keep being a shithead!” Bill said, grabbing Richie by the collar. “Bev is upset and you’re being a dick to her!”

“No shit!” Richie scoffed, trying to shove Bill off. “We’re all upset, but she’s talking to us like we’ve already decided to leave and never come back, like we’re _abandoning_ her and Eddie!”

“Then show a little fucking sympathy for that, Rich. Not everyone has someone to go back to.”

“You mean like you? You were alone too, Bill, but you’re so gung ho on leaving anyway! I’ll be damned if that isn’t why you’ve kept this shit to yourself —”

A loud _smack!_ of Bill’s hand hitting Richie’s face interrupted whatever Richie was going to say next. But before Richie could retaliate, before he was even able to properly react, Mike yanked Bill back. Before either of them could do anything further, Mike was placing his large hands on one of each of their shoulders.

“Enough!” Mike boomed. “Everyone! You’re all getting _way_ overheated!”

“Shit — I’m sorry,” Bill stammered. 

Without responding immediately, Richie wiped his bloody lip and fixed his glasses. “S’fine, man.”

“I don’t _know_ why I want to go back!” Bill confessed. “But it’s like Mike said — it fucking _hurts_ to think about. It’s beyond _missing_ someone, it… it feels like _grief_ and now I can’t _bear_ it.”

Richie looked down sheepishly as the others stayed silent in a brief pause. No one could think of a response to that — how could they? Nothing had prepared them for any of this.

“Well, I — I’m staying here with Eddie,” Beverly said, her eyes welling up. “Any of you can go, it’s — it’s fine. You should be able to do that. None of us should fight. But I’m staying. We’re staying.”

“Can’t you come with us?” Mike asked her. “Can’t she, Bill? I mean, if He can bring us all here, why can’t Eddie and Beverly come with any of us?”

At that, Richie perked his head back up. “That’s perfect! We can all go back and if — if we can’t come back, at least no one will be left alone? I can take Eddie.”

“Oh. So you’re just going to take your favorite with you like a souvenir?” Beverly asked a little coldly.

“I don’t have a _favorite,”_ Richie scowled. “It has nothing to do with that. You _know_ that he’s more affectionate and likes attention and I like _doing_ those things. You like your space more, so I _give you_ your space. It’s not about favorites, it’s about acting on what everyone needs.”

“Which apparently is to split up,” Beverly grumbled. 

“You hang out with Ben and Bill the most because they’re quiet,” Richie continued.” Mike and Stan are together with each other the most because they prefer the outdoors. Tell me I’m wrong. We don’t do it because we love one another less than others, but we just know how to _fit_ when we can’t all constantly be with each other. I don’t have seven hands to hold for fucks sake.”

“That’s not the point, Richie.”

“Both of you,” Stan groaned, leaning forward and pinching the bridge of his nose. “All of you, please. We’re all upset and you are all just misunderstanding each other.”

“I’m sorry that I got angry with you,” Richie told her sincerely, offering Bill an apologetic nod. “But I’m not taking him with me like a _pet._ I’ll take you, too. I’ll take any of you that want to come. It’s wherever you guys want to go. I just know the others didn’t have this kind of… lifestyle before. I did. Eddie and I _can_ fit in with my life back then, I know it. You can too, if you want. It’s up to you. But I think I’m forgetting about people I loved, and if the tables were turned, you guys would want me to find a way back, too…”

“None of us will want to come back if we keep saying nasty things to each other,” Mike said, looking between Riche, Bill, and Beverly. “But we can’t be angry with anyone’s decisions. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Beverly muttered.

“We can all go our separate ways and come back, right?” Ben asked Bill. “If we wanted to?”

“I suppose so,” Bill told him honestly. 

“So some of us could come back…”

“Then what’s the point?” Beverly asked him. “Why go at all?”

“To have a choice,” Ben replied sadly. “We all deserve a choice.”

*******

The door swung open silently as Ben entered the bedroom. Ben slowly sauntered to the bed and crawled over until he was leaning over the edge of it, noticing the brief pause in Eddie’s movements as he must’ve sensed Ben’s presence. He sat on the floor behind the side of the bed, painting a wooden birdhouse that he and Ben had made for Stan to hang up outside. 

“What are you going to do with it?” Ben asked gently.

Eddie looked up at him in bewilderment and a hint of betrayal. “I’m going to give it to Stan.”

“Ok… but, Eddie, if he leaves…”

“He showed up with flowers,” Eddie huffed, turning back to his project. “He can leave with a birdhouse. If he doesn’t want to remember me, he can throw it away.”

Ben laid flat on his stomach, resting his elbows on the edge of the mattress as he looked down at Eddie. He couldn’t remember finer details like that, from when they had first gotten here. Not the way Eddie could. Mostly, Ben remembered how _scared_ they all felt. “Some of us can stick together, you know. If you wanted to go with... say me, or Mike, or Richie…”

“Mike’s time wasn’t any better,” Eddie grumbled. “I don’t know why he’d want to go back.”

“But you don’t have to _stay_ here. Hell, maybe you, me, and Bev could _all_ go with Richie and have a little commune.”

It didn’t make either of them laugh, but Ben didn’t have quite the same charm as Richie in these situations. On paper, maybe, but not through verbal conversation. 

“I want all of you,” Eddie finally said quietly.

“Me, too, Eddie. But it’s not fair for us to take choices away. Richie just said it downstairs… if we have people who miss us… you know, what if it were _us?_ If the tables were turned, if you were taken from all of us one day, we’d want a chance to see you again, too.”

Simply nodding, Eddie kept his focus on the birdhouse, turning it gently in the light shining in from the window. Ben wasn’t sure what to say, but he knew nothing would ease Eddie’s heartbreak so easily. Instead, he just watched Eddie place polka dots all over the side of the little wooden house.

“Did Stanley really have flowers when he came here?” 

Eddie was about to answer before being interrupted by Mike’s voice at the door.

“Hey, fellas.”

Eddie perked up and Ben turned to Mike looking at them both sheepishly from the doorway.

“Hi, Mikey,” Eddie said quietly, putting his house down and peering over the mattress at him.

“We’ve been talking —”

“More calmly, I hope,” Ben sighed.

“They may have come up with a way for us all to communicate with… this… Turtle. Maturin,” Mike explained.

“How?” Eddie asked skeptically.

“Well, Eddie, I don’t expect you to know about these, because I sure didn’t, but… Ben, have you ever heard of a smoke-hole?”

*******

“This is so dangerous,” Eddie muttered, watching the others with apprehension. “I don’t have my DPI, or my pump —”

“Sweet pea, I have no idea what any of those things are,” Richie said.

“They’re for asthma,” Stanley explained. “Or, _were_ for asthma. Not sure how much better medicine would be now, but I’m sure they’re obsolete.”

“If you have asthma, maybe you should sit this out,” Ben mused.

“No way!” Eddie exclaimed. “I’m not being left out.”

“Someone can stay out here with you,” Bill suggested. “Maybe Bev?”

“It might be a good idea for Beverly to stay out,” Mike agreed. “You _both_ are so small…”

“The only two people that don’t want to go in the first place?” Beverly asked with an eyebrow cocked.

“Fair enough. We’ll draw straws then.”

“I got matches,” Richie said, taking a pack out of his chest pocket. “I’ll light one. Whoever takes the burnt match stays out with Eddie. Deal?”

All the Losers working on their smoke-hole took a break to gather around while Richie lit a match and blew it out. He took five others out, counting twice to make sure there were six for them, and covered the burnt end of the one behind his palm. Each time a Loser took a match, they offered an apologetic “I love you,” to Beverly for suggesting she stay without any warranted reason. However, when Richie took his match, something was wrong.

“How are there seven?” Stan asked. “I just saw you count them all.”

“Not burnt, either,” Richie murmured, flipping the last match over to reveal it to be untouched. The others double-checked their matches to see that none of them had a burnt match.

“Guess someone wants us all in there,” Bill mused.

“Stupid fucking Turtle,” Richie sighed, lighting his match to light a cigarette.

“You’re going to be surrounded by smoke in five minutes, Rich,” Eddie said.

“Not gonna taste as good as a Winston,” Richie winked, taking a drag before helping Beverly light her own cigarette. He was about to light Ben’s, but Bill put it out with his fingers.

“Three on a match,” he said. “Bad luck.”

“Don’t need any more of that, do we?” Stan said, rolling his eyes.

They had dug into the dirt inside of an old shed in the far back of their yard, just on the outer layers of the woods. It looked as if a strong wind would knock it down at any moment, so none of them had gone near it before. In the bitter cold, they dug deep enough inside to make a pit for them all to fit around a fire they would build. Eddie and Ben carefully lined the walls and ceiling with a protective tarp to keep the wood from setting fire and also keep the smoke from coming out.

“Any of you ever hotbox before?” Richie asked as he sat cross-legged beside the fire pit, tossing some branches into the growing flames.

“What’s a hotbox?” Mike asked.

“Don’t encourage him,” Beverly sighed, her voice already strained from the smoke. 

“We should all be quiet,” Bill instructed. “We need to let our thoughts wander from our bodies…”

“I don’t like this,” Eddie mumbled in a quivering voice. “I don’t want to feel like I’m losing my mind again.”

Both Mike and Richie at his side took a hand in their own. Eddie took a deep breath and closed his eyes again, trying his best not to let panic take him over. 

Most of them feel silly sitting there in the silence, with nothing but the crackling wood and stones in place of their usual conversation and banter. Bill and Beverly both start letting out dry coughs, but are both able to stay there as Mike and Ben throw more wood and stone into the pit. After a few minutes, they start to forget what’s happening. Richie began to think he might be getting high, that familiar hum in his brain like after he takes a first hit. Ben and Stan both feel as if they are drifting to sleep. 

A sick feeling started to creep up Eddie’s spine and through his limbs. He let out a small whimper, but the others don’t seem to notice, all of them beginning to drift away somewhere beyond the smoke-hole in the shed. His chest started to heave, but he can’t tell if it’s the smoke or the panic or just — just _anything,_ but it’s building with every second. He opened his mouth, but his ability to speak has moved somewhere beyond him. In desperation, he freed his hands from Richie and Mike’s grips — both of whom had gone slack — and twisted himself around to sprint out of the shed.

The cold air was welcoming for a moment before his body began to shiver and all those terrible feelings Eddie had were only amplifying. As he stood panting in the bright sun, clutching his chest, he was beginning to see it all again and realized he was _feeling_ it all again. The ice-bath chambers. The chained isolation. The starvation. The _hands_ on him. It was too much and Eddie felt a sinking feeling in his chest.

What if this was a trick? What if this damn Turtle wasn’t just trying to _talk_ to them — what if He was trying to bring them back? Was Eddie already beginning to feel the pull of time, dragging him back to his awful prison? Were the others in there right now, being pulled away from him?

Even more disturbing to think — _was_ Bill speaking to this _Maturin?_ Or was it — _IT_ again? What if it just wanted them back for more? 

“Guys!” Eddie cried, his voice hoarse and feeble from the smoke in his lungs. “Guys!” 

There was no response that called back to him from the shed. Eddie’s knees buckled under his shaking body, weakness overcoming him. He couldn’t just hold back. They were in this _together._

“Guys!” he tried again, crawling back towards the shed. He should have been disturbed by the utter, sheer darkness he was met with upon entering. The others felt too distant — this felt too _empty._ Eddie pushed himself through, crawling along the cold dirt in an endlessness that disturbed him. By the amount he was moving, he should’ve been many feet _beyond_ the shed by now, but he still dragged himself through the darkness. He was going towards them; he could feel it.

Without a warning, as Eddie felt he may have just been close enough to someone else, he felt a great force pull him forward. He reached around to grab something, _anything,_ briefly able to cling onto something soft before his body began to fall _upward,_ still into that eerie darkness. Eddie lost his ability to tell which way was up or down or where he was going until he landed on his feet. 


	11. Where or When?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a wee shorter than usual but :)) enjoy <3
> 
> Additional cw/tw (spoilers): dead bodies

*******

**19??**

When Richie was free of the surrounding smoke, he took a deep, clear breath, and was instead met with a mouthful of water as his body was submerged. Unable to determine which way the surface could have been, he flailed his limbs and clung onto the only thing that had managed to stay in his grasp when he was lifted off of the ground. Panic overtook him, gasping out in the water with no hope of pulling in air, desperately reaching out for anything else he could find, until something wrapped around his neck. 

_ A Turtle doesn’t have arms like this, _ Richie thought to himself, feeling the creepy, possibly slimy thing around his throat.  _ I’m being drowned by a fucking sea monster. _

Just as he was close to accepting his doom to the sea, that arm around his neck pulled him up to the surface, the cold air hitting his face like shards of ice. Richie sputtered out all the water threatening to go into his lungs as the arm let him go. He spun around and saw that the wet, soggy  _ skin _ he thought he had felt had just been the wet sleeve of Bill’s jacket.

“Are you ok?” Bill gasped out, trying to catch his breath with Richie.

Richie nodded, quickly catching his glasses before they slipped off of his face. They both looked around to take in their surroundings. A seemingly endless sea shimmering under the starry night sky was on one side of them. To the other, just behind Richie, was a short shoreline beneath rocky cliffs. They, too, looked endless in the darkness of the night; they both began to swim towards the only surface in sight.

“Does this place look familiar to you?” Richie stammered, shivering desperately. He was surprised he could not see his breath anymore. It may not have been as cold as it was back in their home outside the shed, but the water was sucking all the body heat out of him.

“I’m not sure,” Bill said truthfully, digging his boot into the thick sand. “We may have to find a way around and up the cliffs.”

“Fabulous,” Richie sighed. 

He pulled Bill in close to him as they walked, both of them trying to share their friction and body heat as they stumbled along this strange place. They both wanted to ask about the others, but were too frightened to voice it just yet. First, they wanted to see where they had just landed.

“Fucking rocks, man,” Richie grumbled, finally letting go of Bill so the two of them could climb around the large boulders leading up to a trail up the cliff.

“We’re definitely still in Maine,” Bill said. “These shores kind of look familiar, like ones I used to see growing up near where I lived with my parents.”

“You can remember that?” Richie asked incredulously.

“For some reason, I’m starting to remember… At least we landed somewhere on earth.”

“Where — Bill, where the goddamn hell else would we be?”

“Richie, I’m not going to question anything after everything we’ve been —  _ SHIT!” _

Bill slipped and Richie watched Bill screech and desperately get out of the hole he had fallen into. 

“Hey, Bill, relax, I’m coming—”

“Rich — fuck, Rich, it’s a — fucking Christ—” Bill finally was able to stand and fall back into Richie, who had his arms out to catch him. He wrapped an arm around Bill’s chest to hold him steady.

“Easy, man, easy.”

“Richie, it’s — it’s—”

“It’s  _ what, _ Bill?”

With an arm still around Bill’s waist, Richie led Bill back over so he could show Richie what the hell was freaking him out so much. Cold fear shot back into Richie’s veins as he leaned over, peering down at a body twisted up between the rocks, fresh and bloated from the waves creeping up and soaking into its decaying flesh.

“Oh. Fuck.”

*******

**19??**

The soft wood and dirt that had been beneath Beverly was now replaced by cold, hard pavement. She rolled over onto her back with a groan, looking up at the cloudy night sky. Her vision was quickly obscured by a large mass and she had to blink a few times to realize it was Ben, holding his hand out to help her up. 

“Anything hurt?” he asked as she got on her feet.

“I don’t think so…” Beverly looked around to see they were in a deserted alley. Behind Ben, she could see the sidewalk and street. “Where is everyone else?”

“I have no idea,” Ben told her, his face etched with concern. 

Still hand-in-hand, they made their way out of the alley and looked up and down the deserted town. It looked too late for anything in this small town to be open. The one exception was a diner just down the road, it’s light like a beacon to the confused, lost souls without a clue how they got here.

“Anything look familiar?” Beverly asked Ben. Now that they could see the town and the cars, she had an inkling into where — or  _ when _ — they were.

“There’s a club down that way,” Ben said, jabbing his thumb behind them as they walked towards the diner. “I used to go there some weekends.”

“You remember?”

“It’s like being slapped in the face,” Ben mumbled, looking around nervously. “I actually feel like I might  _ run into _ someone I know.”

”I think I... I think I used to ride my bike down this street as a kid,” Beverly said in awe. “It’s all flooding back...”

The diner only had a couple of patrons in it, but Ben and Beverly took the barstools on the counter. They decided to sit down and try to digest what the hell had just happened. 

“Where are the others?” Beverly asked again, more to herself since she knew Ben had as little information as she did. 

Ben did not respond, only looking at her sadly as a waitress came up to him with a pad and pencil. 

“How ya doin’, flutter bum?” she asked Ben with a wink. “What can I get ya?”

“Uh, sorry,” Ben muttered, turning to her. He was a bit startled when he looked up at her; she had a beautiful, heart-shaped face, but a mixture of fading and fresh bruises lined the sides of it. “Uh, shit — sorry, I haven’t looked — ”

“Don’t go ape, sugar,” she said, flinching a little at his swear. “I’ll give ya a minute.”

“Sure, uh.” He turned back to Beverly. “You want a coffee or something?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Bev said, still looking around the diner, as if the other Losers might show up somewhere.

“She’ll have a coffee,” Ben told the waitress.

Except the smile on her face faltered as she stared at Beverly — or rather, stared at the space that Beverly occupied, her eyes unfocused and confused. She looked back at Ben warily.

“Who… who ya talkin’ about, darlin’?”

Beverly finally turned to look at the waitress. When she did so, her breath hitched and she froze up, staring up with wide-eyes. Ben looked between the terrified Beverly and the waitress and was at a loss of words. He couldn’t fit together what was going on and just wanted this moment to end as quickly as possible. He was afraid he might alert the waitress to something suspicious, even though they didn’t really have any reason to be paranoid.

“I’ll just have a coffee, please, uh,” Ben looked over at her name tag. “Frida.”

“Sure…” Frida said slowly, her eyes darting back and forth to Ben and the space just around where Beverly sat. “I’ll have that out in a jiffy.”

“Can she not see you?” Ben whispered. “What the hell? Beverly? Are you ok?”

Ben froze as he looked down at Beverly, who continued to stare back at the waitress, her eyes swimming with tears.

*******

**19??**

Someone else was underneath him, cushioning Stanley’s blow when he fell over after landing. They appeared to topple over in wet grass, and the person beneath him gently rolled Stan off of him. Stanley looked up to see that it was Mike, looking just as flabbergasted as Stanley felt. Mike reached over and Stanley thought he was going to take Stanley’s hand. Instead, he gently lifted Stanley’s arm to reveal the sleeve was ripped, missing a large piece of it that should’ve covered his wrist.

“Someone grabbed me,” Stanley recalled. “They must’ve…”

“Did they get left behind? Did anyone else go anywhere?”

“I don’t know… I couldn’t tell.”

They were in the front yard of a house, birds chirping loudly as the sun was beginning to rise in the distant horizon. It was suburban and familiar to Stanley, but Mike just continued to look worried.

“I think…” Stan began slowly. “Mike, I think I know this place.”

“This?” Mike asked, pointing to the house just in front of them.

“No, not this… I think I live down the road. Or,  _ lived _ .” 

The two of them stood up on shaking legs, brushing off their pants. The air was much warmer here and Stan quickly started to suspect that he had arrived just after he had left. As they neared the end of what appeared to be a cul de sac, Stanley’s heart began to beat faster, his stomach fluttering pleasantly in his chest. The vision of a face became clearer in his mind and he didn’t realize he had started to  _ run. _ Without question, Mike ran along beside him until they reached a tiny peach colored house at the end of the road.

Still catching his breath, Stanley knocked impatiently at the door, unable to stop his rapping until Mike gently took his wrist.

“Easy,” Mike told him. “You’re going to wake the neighbors.”

“I don’t care,” Stanley croaked, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He spotted the doorbell and pressed on it furiously, his finger practically vibrating on the button. He finally froze when they heard another voice calling out through the door.

“Hold your horses, knucklehead! We’ve already found Christ and I ain’t got peanuts to give you for charity so—”

The door swung open and Stanley’s stomach flipped twice at the sight of the face staring back at him — at first in rage, shortly falling into shock and confusion. Her eyes swam with tears at the sight of him standing in the doorway and his chest swelled with sunshine as all of their happy memories flooded his heart.

“Hi, Patty love.”

*******

**19??**

Eddie’s feet hit solid ground.

Still shaking from head to toe, he desperately looked around in the pitch darkness surrounding him. Whatever he had grabbed onto before landing here was still in his hand, but it no longer had the weight attached to it, leaving only what felt like a piece of fabric. Eddie brought it close to his face and could make out the faint scent of Stan. He held the torn piece close to his chest as he felt around in the void with his other hand. 

Every sound he made echoed and Eddie could smell — frankly, it smelled like literal  _ shit, _ maybe even  _ rot, _ and he took all of his steps carefully. The floor was solid, probably concrete. At last, Eddie’s outstretched hand found the cold surface of a nearby wall and he felt around for a possible switch. 

Instead, he found a door.

Eddie pulled open the door with all of his might and was welcomed to a dim, gray hallway of many doors. Doors that were all too familiar to him.

He was back. And he was alone.

“No no no no no…” he mumbled, shaking his head as if to rid the delusion of the asylum. But even in his flurry vision, eyes filling with tears, he was still surrounded by the place he had been forced to call home for over two years. Eddie turned his head to look upon the room he had landed in, with the horrific realization that the smell was that of  _ bodies _ in beds.

Unmoving, decomposing, neglected bodies; and one of them was  _ his. _

“Oh  _ god,” _ Eddie cried quietly, covering his mouth with his hand. He turned and ran out of the room, but he had no idea where to  _ go. _ He had never been able to escape before,  _ how the hell could he leave now? _

What were they to do with a crazy queer who had the audacity to come back from the  _ dead? _

“I gotta get the fuck outta here,” Eddie muttered, holding Stanley’s sleeve tight and picking a direction to run off to. Did they even know about his body yet? He wouldn’t put it past this place to just  _ forget _ to check on them. There were too many bodies in here, living or dead. Each and every one of them was neglected and tortured. 

The door was locked. What else should Eddie have expected? He was doomed to come back and relive this fucking nightmare, probably die a  _ second _ time. Maybe this was the punishment for all of his sin. This is what he deserved after thinking he could be  _ happy _ by living like a goddamn heathen. A filthy, whorish queer. 

Maybe the house  _ had _ been hell; now he was past the gates and doomed to suffer again for the test that he failed.

Eddie paced up and down the hall, trying each and every door, but only his own abandoned cell of dead bodies remained open. He was trapped now, forced with the company of only himself and the rotting flesh of six other deviants like him, including his very own. The sight of his own corpse finally made him retch on the floor beside the open door.

Just as Eddie wiped his mouth with his own sleeve, still clinging desperately to Stan’s, the entry door opened.

He spun on his heel and watched his old doctor, a bodyguard, and a woman come into the hallway and freeze in their tracks. Eddie’s chest constricted at the sight of her, his palms beginning to sweat as her face contorted with rage.

“I thought you said he was  _ dead!” _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ope


	12. Adjustments and Acceptance - Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello welcome thank you for returning <3
> 
> Some additional (possibly spoiler) cw/tw for this chap: mention of vomit, dead bodies, infant death, domestic abuse, uhh accidental age difference? And people in the wrong time period using slang that they just shouldn’t rjjdjdbr

*******

The stench of vomit was quickly overtaking Bill, and he had to take a step back from where Richie was bent over and expelling his dinner into the waves on the shore. Bill was only surprised that he himself wasn’t losing his stomach over what they found. With as many times as he had written about death and poured his heart out into the descriptive grotesqueness of it,  _ seeing _ it was another thing entirely. Given how much both he and Richie were shaking, he doesn’t think either of them could’ve survived being drafted in that damn war.

Once Richie seemed to finish his retching, Bill reached over to pat Richie’s back, pinching the bridge of his nose as he did so. How exactly does one comfort their boyfriend after he’s seen his own corpse?

“We need to get the fuck outta here, man,” Richie sputtered, wiping his chin. “I can’t —I can’t be near it.”

“We’re not far from the trail,” Bill told him, squeezing Richie’s shoulder affectionately.

“Do you think… do you think that’s really me?” Richie asked him, his eyes wide and terrified behind his glasses. “Like, am  _ I  _ really me, or am I just some imitation of myself? Were we fucking, like, recreated, or did we just leave shells behind?”

Bill blinked up at him as he straightened up, his long limbs shaking where Bill’s hand rested. “That’s an awfully complicated question, Richie, but… I think, maybe our souls must be the same.”

“Then why’d we forget so much?” Richie almost demanded. “Did parts of me die with — with that body?”

“Richie,  _ I don’t know,”  _ Bill said pleadingly. “But whatever we left back here — whatever  _ mattered, _ maybe that’s what we need to find. Not the corpse.”

“Yeah, yeah, right,” Richie huffed, shaking his head. “Let’s go, man, before I ralph again.”

Richie’s gait was still a little unsteady as they walked up the trail to the top of the cliff. The closer they got, the tighter Richie’s grip got around Bill’s hand. 

“Are you ok?” Bill asked, giving his hand a squeeze back.

“They’re up there…” Richie whispered. “Somewhere in the woods, they’re going to wake up and start looking for me.”

“Who’s they?”

“My partners, Patrick and Sadie… I saw them not long after we got to the house. They got married and had kids and I… I got  _ mad _ at them for being happy without me. How fucking shitty is that? What kind of piece of shit am I?”

“You’re not a piece of shit, Richie. I know we haven’t seen eye to eye on everything, but you were probably feeling hurt and betrayed by people you loved. Sometimes we act in not so nice ways when we’re in pain… even to people we never thought we’d treat like that. It’s honestly, probably why all my writing would end up being these terrible, hopeless stories. We think love is this magical fix-all thing, that being in love or loving someone can turn us into good people, but it doesn’t work like that. Humans are pretty damn complicated.”

“That doesn’t mean I should’ve been such a shit to them,” Richie muttered. “Just like I shouldn’t have been an ass to you guys back in the house.”

“None of us should have,” Bill agreed. “But I think that trying to be a better person and making changes is what matters. What are we going to do when we see them?”

Richie opened his mouth, but froze as his boot kicked into something that skidded across the forest floor. In the darkness, they could make out the outline of a bottle rattling along the dirt, the sound of the glass ringing loudly in the otherwise quiet atmosphere. It rolled away from them until it disappeared off the edge of the cliff which Richie had tripped over, falling into the darkness to meet his body.

“I emptied the whole damn bottle,” Richie muttered. “No wonder I was so blitzed I didn’t notice the cliff.”

The sun was beginning to rise in the distance as they trekked through the woods. A small clearing could be seen as they began to approach it, and Bill chuckled lightly next to Richie.

“You have a fucking hippie van.”

“Don’t rag on my Kombi, man. She’s a gentle spirit.”

“Richie, she’s a car.”

“Still…” Richie trailed off, slowing his gait down as he spotted something coming out of the van. Bill looked, too, and saw a woman — a  _ naked _ woman, stretching her limbs out and yawning.

“Hey, early bird,” she grinned, paying no mind to her nudity in the presence of the stranger beside Richie. “The hell have you been?” She frowned as they approached, giving Richie a once-over. “Baby, did you run off and get new threads out here in Bumblefuck? And your… hair, what the hell you do to your hair?”

“Hi, Sadie,” Richie breathed, staring down at her in awe. 

Still confused, she crossed her arms over her bare breasts and gave Bill a strange look. “Who’s the kid?”

“Kid?” Bill intoned.

“You a freedom rider, love?” she asked kindly.

“Uh — oh, yeah. Totally my scene.”

“Groovy.”

Richie rolled his eyes at Bill. “Sadie, can I talk to you and Patrick in the Kombi?”

“Sure, baby,” she grinned. She lifted herself to her tip-toes to give Richie a kiss, but he flinched away uncomfortably. Bill could see the confusion in her eyes and Richie did his best to try to coax her back to the van to wake Patrick up.

“I’ll be right back,” he told Bill quietly.

“Yeah, I’ll be… right out here,” Bill replied awkwardly. 

Patrick was still stirring in the van, his eyes half-lidded as he rolled a joint under their hemp blanket. He grinned up at Richie when he and Sadie approached the open back. Sadie hopped in and tucked herself under the covers, but Richie stayed out with his feet firmly on the ground.

“The fuck happened to you?” Patrick chuckled, looking Richie up and down much like Sadie did. “Where did you run off to?”

The conversation Richie had with them was coming back to his mind. He wasn’t sure whether to think of it as months in the past or years in the future, but it had already happened for him. As it flooded back to him along with all his memories here with them, the future they had built for themselves, and the future that he  _ wanted… _

This just wasn’t it anymore. 

All of the pain and betrayal Richie had felt had dissipated into acceptance. The longing for this stolen life now faded into a distant memory, even as Richie stood in the presence of his old lovers as if it were yesterday.  _ It  _ was _ yesterday, _ Richie realized. At least, yesterday for them. 

Everything he was angry about losing no longer mattered.

He just wanted to go home.

*******

It was rare for Richie to be quiet, but Bill didn’t pester him as they drove to the street Patrick and Sadie had dropped them off at. At last, there was a small smile on his face, suppressing a grin at Bill flashing a peace sign at the departing van.

“Really diggin’ the flower power scene, huh, Bill?”

“I never got a lot of experience with it to be honest,” Bill told him. “My parents were very conservative. The craziest thing I did in my teens was skip P.E. to smoke a Winston with my high school sweetheart, Audra.”

“Bummer.”

“So how’d the talk go?”

To his surprise, Richie’s smile brightened and he leaned forward to take Bill’s face in both hands, kissing him full on the mouth. “Bill, my darling, you can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“Oh —so, it went — well, I see,” Bill stammered, his cheeks squished between Richie’s palms still. 

“Better than,” Richie beamed. However, his smile faltered slightly, staring down at the look of uncertainty on Bill’s face. “I just… I know I want to go back. I know what I want. I don’t think I ever did before. I think I was just… trying to escape myself. I know I loved them, but they were just… a distraction. Which wasn’t fair to anyone. You guys are everything I want now. And shit Bill, I’m so fucking sorry about the fight in the house; if we go back, I swear—”

“No, Rich, I’m sorry,” Bill finally said, taking Richie’s hands from his face to hold them. “I  _ hit _ you, Richie. That’s not ok, no matter how angry we were.”

Richie automatically sucked the bit of his lip that was scabbed from Bill’s fist. “Are you… coming back with me?” he asked cautiously. 

“I am,” Bill said after a moment. “But I just — there’s one thing I gotta do first.”

“Anything you need,” Richie assured him. “Then we can figure out how to get home, sandwich me between Haystack and Farmboy with little doe-eyes on my lap. If they’re all home, that is...”

“If they’re not, they’ll find a way back,” Bill said confidently. 

“Sure as shit hope so…” Richie muttered. “Stan — Stan and Mike didn’t seem too jazzed about the house when we first got there. Maybe they won’t want to go back.”

“That was different. We didn’t know each other then.”

“I guess you’re right,” Richie assented, looking a bit more hopeful. He kissed Bill again, but Bill gently eased him back.

“Also… maybe lay off a little on the affection.” Bill let go of Richie’s hands and looked around the empty neighborhood. “Not just because of queer-bashers. I look like a kid.”

“A kid?”

“You don’t see it?” 

“See what?”

“I checked out my reflection while we were in the van,” Bill explained. “And I look… my age  _ now,  _ in ‘67 _. _ When we are. So to everyone else, I’m seventeen. Which means I basically look like I’m twelve, because puberty was a bit slow…”

“Oh. Yikes. Well, hopefully we won’t be long. Who we seeing?”

Bill took a deep breath before leading Richie back down the road. “My little brother. My wife is about fifteen now, so that would be too weird, but… I think she’s better off not seeing me anyway.”

They didn’t have to walk all the way to the house Bill described. As they slowly made their way down the street, they could see a small boy playing just off the sidewalk.

“He… he looks a lot smaller than his age,” Bill whispered. “He’s already eleven, but… God, he’s… so small for his age. Always was… He must’ve looked like a damn kid when they sent him off to ‘Nam.”

“How old was he when he was drafted?”

“Eighteen,” Bill said quietly. “Never saw past it. Died just a few months in.”

Richie looked at Bill curiously, worry and concern on his face. “What are you gonna tell him?”

“I’m not sure,” Bill said truthfully. “Maybe goodbye. Maybe encourage him to go to college — avoid the draft. Move to Canada. Or just… be happy.”

“You gonna do all that to an eleven-year-old?”

Instead of responding, Bill gravitated towards the boy playing in the street. There weren’t any other kids around. Georgie seemed to be drawing on the road with chalk, making a map of the seas. As Bill got closer, Georgie looked up to smile brightly. However, his smile faltered slightly and he sat down cross-legged once Bill had reached him.

“Watcha up to, buddy?” Bill asked casually, trying to speak through the lump in his throat.

“You’re supposed to be in L.A.”

Bill blinked, frowning down at his little brother. “What do you mean?”

“You and Dad are in L.A.,” Georgie said, not looking very concerned. “But you’re not really the same Bill, are you?”

“How’d you know?”

Georgie shrugged, absently playing with the chalk in his hands. “The Turtle talks to me sometimes, too.”

Bill smiled down at him as he knelt to sit across from where Georgie sat. “Weird old coot, isn’t He?”

“I guess,” Georgie sighed. It was so oddly  _ casual _ of a conversation considering what they both knew. 

“I’m not… going to be able to see you again from where I’m going,” Bill told him. “There’s so much I want to say, but I don’t… I don’t know where to begin.”

“So don’t,” Georgie said simply.

“But… I feel like I have to.”

“I don’t think you do.”

“If only you knew, Georgie…” Bill murmured sadly.

“I don’t want to. It’s ok. It’s a lot more fun not knowing. You always get mad at Dad when he spoils your books before you read them.”

Unable to help his chuckle, Bill shook his head in slight disbelief. “I guess that’s true. Sometimes it’s good to know when a story won’t end so well, though. Not everyone wants to read a sad ending.”

“All your stories are sad,” Georgie laughed. “You’re part of the problem, Billy.”

“I’m working on changing that,” Bill smiled sadly. “Listen, Georgie… no matter what I say or… what you think anyone thinks of you… the only thing I ever wanted was for you to be happy. You don’t have to be like me, or like anything Mom and Dad think you should be. Sometimes I’m going to tell you things that I think will be good for you, but I’m going to be wrong a lot.”

Georgie tilted his head, looking at Bill curiously. “Are you telling me to make me feel better about later? Or to make you feel better now?”

“A bit of both, I guess.”

As if sensing the ache in Bill’s muscles, the longing to hold his little brother again, Georgie sat up and crawled over to close the gap between them. His arms were arm around Bill’s neck and Bill hugged him back tightly.

“You don’t have to tell me anything, Bill. I already know. You’re the best big brother in the world.”

“Goddamnit, Georgie,” Bill choked through a laugh. “You’re making me cry.”

Georgie pulled back to look at Bill again. “It’s going to be ok, Billy.”

“Wish I could say the same,” Bill said quietly.

“You can. The bad stuff doesn’t last forever.”

“I can’t believe I’m getting advice from a sixth grader. I’m supposed to be comforting  _ you.” _

“You probably needed it more,” Georgie smiled. He looked just beyond Bill’s shoulder. “Your friend has funny clothes.”

“Yeah, he’s a funny guy,” Bill chuckled. “You’d like him a lot.”

“You’re going with him?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Where?”

Bill sighed, smiling at the prospect of never coming back where he came from; he didn’t need to. “Just going home, Georgie.”

He looked back at Bill, his face still bright in the morning sun. “I love you, Billy.”

“I love you too.”

*******

“Uh, excuse me?”

The waitress turned around, looking up at Ben cautiously as she took a drag through her cigarette. It was hard to tell under the dim street light shining through to the alleyway she stood in, but she looked a little uneasy. “Somethin’ wrong, hun?”

“No,” Ben said, side-eyeing Beverly, who had her hand on Ben’s arm. “You’re, uh… your name is Frida Marsh, right?”

She looked a bit stunned by Ben’s knowing her full name, her eyes narrowing. “Why?”

“The guy that did that,” Ben continued, gesturing to her bruised face. “His name is Al. You just got married to him.”

“Listen,” Frida said sternly, tossing her cigarette down and stomping on it with her heel. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are—”

“I’m not trying to pry,” Ben said, holding his hands up in surrender. “But, someone — someone close to you — close to both of us — needs you to leave.”

Frida scoffed, brushing her red curls behind her ears. “Real nice. I dunno who you are, but I suggest you quit bashing ears and stay in your lane.”

“Wait,” Bev whispered, gently tugging Ben’s arm. “Tell her…”

Ben was sure that Frida was close to calling the police or any form of help that would take Ben off to the loony bin. He tried to take Beverly’s words as quickly as possible, barely registering them himself when he spoke to Frida again.

“Wait — what about Mary?”

At that, Frida froze, looking terror-stricken over at Ben. “I… I’m sorry?”

“You were going to leave him a few months ago,” Ben continued, repeating what Beverly was telling him, repeating what Frida couldn’t hear because, for some reason, it was as if Beverly didn’t exist here. “If you still had Mary, wouldn’t you leave him to protect her?”

“He wouldn’t have hurt Mary,” Frida snapped at him, her freckled face turning beet red. “He’s not a  _ monster, _ he just — he has a temper. I can handle it. I’ve been with worse.”

“I know you love him, Frida,” Ben said softly. “And I’m not going to tell you he doesn’t love you. I’m sure he does — but that doesn’t mean he’s treating you right. And if Mary were here, and something were to happen to you… he would’ve hurt her, too.”

“Well,  _ she’s not!” _ Frida spat, her eyes welling with tears now. “So you — you don’t have to worry about that happening.”

“You’re not going to leave him right now. I get it. But when you have Beverly… you need to leave for her. People can help you. When you have Beverly or know she’s coming, go back to your sisters in Portland. She’ll help you, I promise. Once you have Beverly, and you’re still living there with him, it might be too late.”

Frida was looking at him incredulously; a mixture of confusion and sadness. “Who the hell is Beverly?”

“You’ll know,” Ben said simply. He felt Bev squeeze his arm.

Without another word, Frida stormed back off into the diner. It felt like Ben had been holding his breath, finally letting out a stream of air through his nostrils and feeling his chest deflate.

“She won’t be pregnant with you for another two years,” Ben sighed quietly. “She’s going to forget.”

“I don’t think she will,” Beverly told him, looking off in the direction her mother had left, a sad expression in her eyes. “Hopefully what you said about Mary will trigger something when she realizes…”

“Who was Mary?”

“My sister, sort of,” Beverly explained. She shrugged and leaned back against the brick of the building behind her. “She was premature and died a few days after my parents had her. It was just a couple years before I was born, so… I’m sure it’s still fresh.”

“I’m so sorry, Beverly,” Ben said, turning back to her. “I wish there was a way for us to know if your mom…”

“There probably won’t be,” Beverly said. “I don’t think it’s anything like Back to the Future made us out to believe…”

“What future?” Ben asked quizzically. “Our future?”

“No, it’s… nevermind,” Beverly shrugged. “I just don’t think it’ll change anything for me. Like…  _ me, _ me. I’ll probably be the same. But at least there will be a Frida and Beverly out there somewhere who don’t have to deal with him. I sure as hell hope so. I can just never know for sure.”

“I mean, if we were to  _ stay _ here…”

“I’m not going to,” Beverly said firmly. “I told you I’m going back. My mom, she… she’ll do it. I can feel it.” She turned and looked up at Ben sadly. “Are you going to keep an eye on her?”

“No,” he admitted. “I’m going to go back.”

“No?” Beverly asked, smirking slightly. “Don’t you want to see, uh… Betty, was it?”

Betty had started to form again in Ben’s mind, a full figure of a person with soul and beauty and love that Ben thinks he had for her… but  _ had  _ was the hard truth. There was a part that hoped she was happy wherever she was, but now that he was here and remembering everything clearly… he was quite ok with her being happy without him. And vise versa.

“Nah,” Ben scoffed playfully. “She can do better than a square like me. It’s best I stick with the rest of you Losers.”

“Golly, how highly you think of us,” Beverly laughed. She narrowed her eyes, looking at him in slight awe. “You sure you don’t want to stay? We can run off to Chicago, share slam poetry in a cafe?”

“Is that all you people think I did? Drink espresso and snap my fingers in a club?”

“I’m certain that’s what everyone is doing in the 50’s, like, all the time.”

Ben rolled his eyes, but stepped forward to take Beverly’s face in his hands, kissing her on the forehead. “I wanna go home. We should go back to everyone else.”

“That sounds amazing,” Beverly beamed up at him. “You think they’re all back there?”

“I hope so,” Ben whispered. “And if they’re not… if they all went back…”

“I won’t hold it against them,” Beverly assured him, despite how much that hurt to think about. “I’ll understand. But I want to go back to whoever is waiting for us, too.”

“How do we get back there, you think?”

Beverly gently removed his hands from her face, looking back out of the alley, her eyes darting up and down the street. “Any place around here where we can make another smoke-hole?”

**Author's Note:**

> Please excuse any historical inaccuracies that may have occurred when I didn't care enough to fact check something I wrote sldkfjdslfj. 
> 
> Come yell at me on tumblr @fuckbitchesgetReddie


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